?What: “Kenny”
When: Feb. 29, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Baxter Avenue Theaters, 1250 Bardstown Road, Louisville, Ky.
Details: The free screening for Pumper & Cleaner Expo attendees is the first U.S. showing of the Australian feature that will be released March 7 in Louisville.
For tickets: E-mail requests to kennyrsvp@gmail.com
For more info: www.kennythemovie.com
An Australian hit comedy revolving around the portable sanitation industry, filmed in part at the 2005 Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo, will be introduced in the United States during the Expo this month in Louisville, Ky.
Kenny, the heartwarming story of a portable restroom operator Down Under, is scheduled for a free screening for Pumper & Cleaner Expo attendees Feb. 29 at a theater near the Kentucky Exposition Center, where the Expo is being held. It will be released for U.S. audiences the following week in Louisville, then move on to 10 major markets.
The film was released in Australia in 2006 and England in 2007 to positive reviews. It was nominated for several Australian film awards.
The main character in Kenny, portable restroom operator Kenny Smythe, was the brainchild of actor Shane Jacobson, who became familiar with the portable sanitation industry while working with pumping contractor Splashdown Pty Ltd. on film sets. Jacobson and his filmmaker brother Clayton Jacobson produced the film and obtained financing from Splashdown owner Glenn Preusker.
The film is a mockumentary — a comedy in documentary style — but it doesn't make fun of the portable sanitation industry, Shane Jacobson told Pumper® in an interview when the movie was being released in Australia. Many of the scenes are drawn from real-life special events where Splashdown provided service.
In the movie, Kenny is proud to provide a necessary service that most people wouldn’t want to do. His enthusiasm for portable sanitation is misunderstood by friends and family, and he struggles to gain the respect of both his father and his son for the job he is so passionate about.
“The great thing about guys who work in this industry, they know better than anyone how human we are,” Clayton Jacobson told Pumper. “The only people who get put down are the audience in some ways. The film plays into some of the preconceptions society has about the industry.”
Preusker was delighted with the result.
“What I love about it, it promotes the industry in a positive light,” he said. “It shows someone who has an important role in the industry that keeps everyone going.”
Part of the film was shot during the Pumper & Cleaner Expo, when the main character comes to the trade show and finds validation from a large group of professionals who feel the same way he does about the industry.
“We have high hopes for Kenny; it’s such a feel-good movie,” said Stephen A. Housden of Xenon Pictures, which is promoting the film in the U.S. “It’s great to have the launch of the film with the Pumper & Cleaner attendees, who are very much a part of this movie.”
Zeller said the movie is an upbeat look at an everyday hero, a guy who does a tough job with a good attitude and a smile on his face. He hopes American audiences take to the main character the way Australian fans did, making Kenny one of the top moneymaking films of 2006 in that country.
“These people are vital to our everyday lives,” Zeller says of portable sanitation professionals. “Without what Kenny does for a living, we’d all be in trouble.”
