Torrey Pines is a feature film based on a true story by stop-motion animator Clyde Petersen. The film is a queer punk coming-of-age tale, taking place in Southern California in the late 80's and early 1990's. Raised by a schizophrenic single mother, Petersen's life story unfolds in a series of baffling and hallucinated events. With a mother fueled by hallucinations of political conspiracy and family disfunction, Petersen is kidnapped at the age of 12 and taken on a cross-country adventure that will forever alter the family as they know it.
In those awkward teen years, from George Bush 1.0 to Bill Clinton to George Bush 2.0, it's a time of technological growth in American homes. Desktop computer and personal cell phone use is on the rise. Our culture transforms from a place where a person talking to themselves alone in public is labeled as "crazy," to a time where you are an outcast if you don't have a mobile phone and it is perfectly acceptable to rant and rave in public to an invisible person.
