Year: 1986
Language: English
Format: 35mm Colour
Runtime: 111 min
Director: Andy Jones, Michael Jones
Producer: Andy Jones, Michael Jones
Writer: Andy Jones, Michael Jones
Cinematographer: Michael Jones
Editor: Michael Jones
Sound: Jim Rillie
Music: Paul Steffler, Robert Joy, Pamela Morgan
Cast: Mary Walsh, Andy Jones, Robert Joy, Greg Malone, Brian Downey, Maisie Rillie, Beni Malone, Tommy Sexton, Cathy Jones
Production Company: Faustus Bidgood Productions Ltd.

An erratic, bizarre and very funny feature-length comedy sketch, The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood is a twisted take on Canadian documentaries mixed with a large dash of Monty Python. Crammed with sight gags, off-the-wall ideas and freewheeling experiments in form, Faustus Bidgood chronicles the final days in office of the obsequious little bureaucrat of the title (played with winning numbness by Andy Jones), who, after a decidedly lachrymose revolution, becomes the first ruler of the People’s Republic of Newfoundland. With profound guilt and a pornographic imagination, Faustus walks through life like a shell-shocked Milquetoast, his febrile imagination constantly slipping between then and now, here and there, reason and nuttiness.

A decade in the making, this satirical feature was completed through the dedicated efforts of the Newfoundland Independent Filmmakers Co-operative (NIFCO), and stands as a distinct example of collective, regional filmmaking. Created by what was essentially the core of the Newfoundland comedy group CODCO, the film possesses their trademark brand of offbeat, heavily sardonic humour, balanced by the formal energy of early Godard. Once completed, the film had a successful run on pay-TV, but otherwise received little commercial distribution and remains difficult to find.