It might be the ultimate low-budget film, but Jonathan Caouette’s new documentary, Tarnation, cobbled together from footage Caouette shot over 21 years and edited on the filmmaker’s computer at a cost of only $218, has become the hit of this year’s festival circuit. “He describes the film as a ‘love letter’ to his mother, who developed a host of mental illnesses after being given electric shock therapy from the age of 16 to 25… As much as it is a record of that catastrophic decision made by his grandparents, Tarnation is about an astonishingly creative boy growing up gay in Houston, dealing with the legacy of that pain.”