Ballard film producer releases feature-length movie about an autistic rapper in Seattle: ‘Fantasy A Gets a Mattress’

A Ballard-born-and-raised filmmaker is screening his feature-length movie “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress,” a dark comedy about an autistic rapper navigating the Seattle music scene.

David Norman Lewis and his production company Dr. Clean Productions filmed “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” over the course of four years in Seattle and during COVID. Lewis tells My Ballard that he considers it a “time capsule of late 2010s Seattle, as 80% of our shooting locations no longer exist.”

The film features parts of the city Lewis said is typically neglected by Seattle productions: “No water, no Space Needle, and no trees are to be seen in our film.”

From Lewis, about the film:

“I have some problems… but not all of them,” Fantasy A tells himself. Despite autism, flakey friends, control freak landlords, and zero music scene, he still plans on becoming Seattle’s greatest rapper ever. Or at least find a decent place to sleep in a city where the streets are hungry for blood. 

With his sneakers firmly on the sidewalk, Fantasy A navigates his way through an ensemble cast of new friends all drifting away into their own cloudy dreamworlds. Asia Rose wants to make movies (or maybe make music), Zander wants to be a bigshot financier (or maybe make music), and Ramon wants to run a dojo (or maybe go back to being a guidance counselor).

Way, way above their cloud world is Lil Rude Puss, the regionally famous hip-hop star who everything revolves around. When Lil Rude Puss announces her big Seattle comeback after years away from the city, Fantasy A and friends see it as their opportunity to make it big. But how big is it even possible to get?

Lewis has garnered plenty of accolades for the film: “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” won Best Narrative Feature at the Seattle Black Film Festival in April at its world premiere. Since then, every screening has sold out, including two appearances at local film festivals and 18 screenings at The Beacon Cinema in this summer.

The Local Sightings film festival at 1515 12th Ave on Capitol Hill in mid-September will screen “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” on opening night, as will the Tacoma Film Festival in early October. Lewis says both film festivals will include a “special musical performance with rap, monsters, puppets, and mattresses.”

Photo: Dr. Clean Productions