Absurdism at its finest.
At the Torino Film Festival to accept a lifetime achievement award, filmmaker Terry Gilliam confronted a bizarre and unintended legacy: his connection to the QAnon movement.
With a mix of disbelief and dark humour, Gilliam reflected on how adrenochrome (a fictional hallucinogen from his 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) was co-opted by the conspiracy group.
“I’m responsible for QAnon,” he stated, half-joking.
He lamented the modern “madness” of anti-vaccine rhetoric and other baseless theories, which have driven him from “antisocial media.”
The director, who identifies as an “immigrant filmmaker,” also shared anecdotes of nearly collaborating with Stanley Kubrick and provided a characteristically chaotic update on his stalled project with Johnny Depp, Carnival at the End of Days, blaming funding issues and joking about Mel Gibson’s own biblical film.
