Danish filmmaker Ada Bligaard Søby, has traveled the world, turning stories about individual lives, art, and music into catalysts for discussion about the universal bonds between humans, and the ills and triumphs of society. In her  film, Petey & Ginger - A Testament to the Awesomeness of Mankind, Søby explores the lives of two of her friends, Petey Dammit, bassist for the currently-on-hiatus San Francisco lo-fi psych/garage rockers Thee Oh Sees, and Brookyn-based fortune teller Ginger Partington. Petey and Ginger have never met, but share commonalities such as leaving behind the dysfunctional surroundings of their childhoods for city life, experiences working in the sex industry (Petey, in a distribution center, packing boxes of porn and sex toys for customers all over the world, and Ginger, previously a high-class escort), and an intelligent, outsider perspective on societal “norms.” Through their discussions, pitted against a backdrop of economic collapse, Søby shows a duality to the American landscape; one, a place for adventure, spontenaity, and friendship, the other bleak, imperfect, and self-destructive. Despite any impressions to the contrary, it seems that those who come out on top are those who never fit into mainstream constructs in the first place. At least that’s true for Petey and Ginger.
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