First Feature, which premiered at the Chattanooga Film Festival, is a documentary that sat unfinished for more than a decade before finally crossing the finish line. That delay ultimately becomes one of its greatest strengths. The film chronicles the making of a 2014 student feature by an endlessly passionate, wonderfully eccentric filmmaker who spent five years completing his labor of love. Left alone, both projects could have easily been lost to time. Instead, ten years later director Curtis Matzke took a page from his subject’s playbook, finished his own film, and walked away with the festival’s Best Documentary award—for good reason.
The documentary drops us directly into the chaotic production of Enduring Destiny, following the relentlessly enthusiastic Thomas Reilly-King—or simply TRK—as he races to complete what he views as his collegiate magnum opus. The film follows a college wrestler who dreams of joining the CIA, blending sports comedy, campus hijinks, and dramatic espionage into one gloriously earnest package. It’s about as DIY as filmmaking gets, with TRK wearing nearly every hat imaginable while willing the production forward through sheer determination. Even during production, Enduring Destiny appears destined to become the kind of outsider art best appreciated with a healthy dose of irony. Yet everyone around TRK insists the project is born entirely from sincerity. This isn’t someone chasing camp; it’s someone who simply has a story he has to tell.
Ironically, the decade-long gap in completing First Feature makes it even more compelling. Rather than ending with the completion of Enduring Destiny, Matzke is able to revisit TRK ten years later for an anniversary screening held in a friend’s backyard. That unexpected epilogue gives the documentary a rare sense of perspective, allowing both filmmaker and subject to reflect on what the experience ultimately meant. Few behind-the-scenes documentaries are afforded the luxury of that kind of hindsight, and First Feature makes exceptional use of it.
I came into First Feature completely cold, watching it virtually on a whim. For the first half, I genuinely wondered if it was an elaborate mockumentary. TRK embodies the obsessive student filmmaker archetype so completely that he almost feels like a parody—except he’s simply too wholesome to be fake. Once it became clear that everything unfolding on screen was genuine, I kept waiting for the inevitable collapse. Documentaries about obsessive creators often hide a darker turn. Overnight, for example, spends its first half chronicling the meteoric rise of The Boondock Saints director before revealing the ego and self-destruction that torpedoed his career.
That moment never arrives here.
Instead, we discover that TRK paid everyone involved, worked three jobs to finance the production, and even took out nearly $20,000 in loans to make his dream a reality. He treats his cast and crew with respect, and that fundamental decency becomes the film’s emotional core. Rather than rubbernecking at a spectacular train wreck, First Feature invites us to root for an underdog whose greatest flaw is caring too much. That’s ultimately far more rewarding.
The time jump also transforms the supporting cast. Seeing so many familiar faces return a decade later to laugh, reminisce, and speak fondly about the experience reinforces the documentary’s central point: whatever Enduring Destiny may be as a film, making it mattered. It forged friendships, created lasting memories, and became an experience everyone involved still treasures years later.
Ultimately, First Feature succeeds not only as a document of the making of Enduring Destiny, but also as the first chapter in that film’s inevitable cult legacy. Rather than offering another cautionary tale about artistic obsession, it becomes something far rarer: a celebration of perseverance, sincerity, and the creative impulse itself. It’s a reminder that passion and heart can overcome remarkable obstacles, and Matzke’s greatest achievement is that he never once looks down on his subject. Instead, he recognizes the quiet heroism in simply refusing to give up
