Splitting Hairs

Project Summary

Splitting Hairs is a documentary film that follows the United States Beard and Moustache Team through Europe as it prepares to take on the dominant Association of German Beard Clubs at the World Beard and Moustache Championships (WBMC).

The project combines elements of "Spellbound" and "Waiting for Guffman" with competitive facial hair cultivation to create an off-kilter story that spans 5 countries and two continents, culminating at the 2005 WBMC in Berlin.

The filmmakers have been involved in the project since 2003, when the WBMC was held in the United States for the first time in the event's history, and have concentrated on specific contestants and their stories.

The Championship event itself is a bi-annual event that has taken place throughout Europe since 1990. Contestants are judged in 12-15 categories that range from Full Beard Natural to Freestyle Partial Beard to Handlebar. For many of our subjects, the WBMC is a year round, never ending skirmish that is obsessed over in chat rooms, email messages, and heated conference calls. For these men, the championships mark the grand finale of two years' worth of deeply personal dedication, and spotlights the contestants' idiosyncratic but very real passion.

Splitting Hairs focuses on the lives of WBMC stars Phil Olsen, Gary Johnson, and Bruce Roe as they travel down a long, strange road to the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Along the way we learn about the background of the event and the lives of the characters who are passionately devoted to it. The film culminates at the Championships themselves, where the upstarts of Team USA battle it out against beard and moustache teams from all over the world, including the formidable Association of German Beard Clubs.

Splitting Hairs is a Firelight Films / If You Shave, You're Fired, LLC production. The film is currently in post-production at facilities in New York City and San Francisco, California.

Learn more about the World Beard and Moustache Championships here:
www.worldbeardchampionships.com