my life to write this story." Within three weeks, Korine wrote Kids, a film about 24 hours in the sex- and drug-filled lives of several Manhattan teenagers in New York City during the AIDS crisis. Kids received mixed reviews at the time of its release in 1995, but has since become a significant cult film. Among others, the film features Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson in their first movie roles. The film, while controversial, jumpstarted Korine's career. This put him into contact with film producer Cary Woods who budgeted about $1 million to produce Gummo, Korine's personal vision. In 1997, Korine wrote and directed Gummo, a film based on life in Xenia, Ohio, a town devastated by a tornado in the early 1970s. Forgoing conventional narrative, Gummo is a nonlinear, fragmented series of sketches written by Korine. Much of the cast was found during preproduction where it was filmed in Tennessee, and of all those who appeared in the film, only five were experienced actors. The film is notable for having unsettling, often bizarre scenes, as well as its dreamlike soundtrack, which strengthens the disconcerting atmosphere. It features "an eclectic soundtrack including death metal, Madonna and Roy Orbison. It premiered at the 24th Telluride Film Festival on August 29, 1997. During the screening, numerous people got up and left during the initial cat drowning sequence. Three months later, Werner Herzog called Korine to give praise to the film overall, especially the bacon taped to the wall during the bathtub scene. He told The New York Times, "When I saw a piece of fried bacon fixed to the bathroom wall in Gummo, it knocked me off my chair. [Korine's] a very clear voice of a generation of filmmakers that is taking a new position. It's not going to dominate world cinema, but so what?" Although a majority of mainstream critics derided it as an unintelligible mess, it won top prizes at that year's Venice Film Festival and earned Korine the respect of noted filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, among others. It has been called "unlike anything you've seen in a while – maybe ever" – and that "if you're the kind of person who claims to be frustrated by the predictability of commercial filmmaking, [it presents] a rare opportunity to put your money where your mouth is." In 1998, Korine released The Diary of Anne Frank Pt II, a 40-minute