The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) presents a Long Play season of the innovative documentary, American: The Bill Hicks Story (2010) the definitive portrait of the razor sharp comedian Bill Hicks.

The film takes an intimate look at Hick's life and his bold and belligerent takes on drugs, politics, religion, philosophy and the American Dream which remain as relevant today, more than a decade after his death in 1994.

Fifteen years after his death Bill Hicks is now more popular than ever, and is widely seen as on of the best comedians of the modern era. However in America, where he challenged institutions and societal norms, he suffered from censorship and was never truly recognised by a wide audience. In the country which enshrines freedom of speech in its constitution his story is truly about what it means to be an American.

American: The Bill Hicks Story follows Hicks from his youth living in Houston, Texas in the 1970s with his strict Southern Baptist parents, when with the aid of like-minded friends the 15 year-old began sneaking out to perform at the newly opened Comix Annex in Houston. In 1987 he moved to New York City, and, for the next five years, performed about 300 times a year. As his work progressed his comedy took on wider themes, and he began hitting out at the targets of the day - fundamentalist religion, the Reagan administration and 80s pop culture.