Project Detail

Zodiac Killer Project

Synopsis

Against the backdrop of sunbaked parking lots, deserted courthouses, and empty suburban homes — the familiar spaces of true crime, stripped of all action and spectacle — a filmmaker describes his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary and probes the inner workings of a genre at saturation point.
The true crime genre’s ubiquity is driven by people’s endless fascination, disgust, and — bizarrely — search for comfort in genre conventions that still have the ability to generate complex emotions despite their predictability and familiarity. Filmmaker and multimedia artist Charlie Shackleton’s projects have used his uniquely funny, intellectually engaging style to examine how popular culture, mass media, and storytelling create meaning. In this wholly original, self-aware cinematic work, Shackleton dissects the true crime genre by recreating it. Using Bay Area landscapes, archival material, reenactments, film and TV clips, and voice-over to walk the viewer through what his film would have been like and why, Zodiac Killer Project is a captivating and entertaining experience that will forever change how you watch your next murder program.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2025 - World premiere
Official Selection True/False Film Fest 2025
Official Selection SXSW Film & TV Festival 2025 - Best of the Fests
Official Selection First Look 2025 (New York, Museum of the Moving Image)
Official Selection CPH:DOX 2025

Details

Year: 2025
Type of film: Features
Running time: 92 min
Director: Charlie Shackleton
Producer: Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing, Charlie Shackleton
Executive Producer: Charlotte Cook
Editor: Charlie Shackleton
Director of Photography: Xenia Patricia
Music: Jeremy Warmsley
Colourist: Jason R Moffat

Genre

Experimental

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Loop

Charlie Shackleton
415 Pill Box
London
E2 6GG

charlie@loop.film

Sales Company

Cinetic Media

14th Floor
26 Broadway
New York
NY 10004
USA

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Fragments of hundreds of films from around the world draw together an ensemble cast of actors with one thing in common: each is no longer alive. Together, they contend with a fragile existence lived solely through the traces of their work.<br /> Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2021 - Experimenta - World premiere