[Cover photo credit to PortuGAY at KNIK Records]
Portland-based artist and activist Logan Lynn has announced the new documentary titled The Pain and The Power by filmmaker Cai Indermaur, which is “a personal portrait tracing a 30-year career forged at the intersection of queerness, faith, addiction, trauma, and self-reinvention.” The trailer is out now.
The film comes alongside a new album from Logan Lynn, featuring an original motion picture soundtrack set for release on September 4, 2026. Structured around the songs from the record of the same name, the film “treats music not as background but as a living character.” The project will be released under KNIK Records’ new LGBTQ+ imprint, PortuGAY, founded by Grammy Award-winning Rock band Portugal. The Man. The album will arrive digitally, but also on vinyl and cassette.
In addition to the announcement, Logan Lynn has shared the singles “The Cocaine Scene” and “Too Hard” from The Pain and The Power. The electro tracks underscore Lynn’s story as they “explore the exhaustion of addiction and the struggle to let go, while recognizing how deeply it can become intertwined with one’s identity.”
Lynn shares:
The process of making this record and film has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life. It’s wild to watch decades of footage and songs become a story I can finally step back and see from the outside. These first two singles feel like opening the door and inviting people into that world for the first time. Getting to collaborate with Kyle Andrews on ‘Too Hard’ and with Brian Fortson (Classtronaut) on ‘The Cocaine Scene’ was dreamy as hell. I’ve got so much respect for the artists and filmmakers involved in this massive project — by far, the biggest in my 30 years of doing this — and I am really excited for people to see and hear what we have been building together.
In celebration of The Pain and The Power, Logan Lynn has announced a series of special film screenings throughout Oregon, Washington, and Idaho this September. Each screening will feature an in-person appearance by Lynn, where he will participate in a Q&A after the film.
The documentary has also been named Best Debut Documentary at the Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival (Greece), as well as Official Selection at the Touchstone Independent Film Festival (USA) and Official Selection at the Multi Dimension Independent Film Festival (UK). It has also been nominated for Best Documentary at the Director’s Cut International Film Festival (Norway). Tickets and dates for all screenings are available here.
More about the film:
The Pain and The Power is an documentary portrait of artist, activist, and survivor Logan Lynn. Beginning in rural Nebraska and Texas inside a fundamentalist Christian world hostile to any type of difference, the film follows Lynn’s early sense of displacement, religious trauma, and abuse, and the ways secrecy and fear shaped both identity and survival. Through intimate interviews with Lynn, and decades of archival footage, music videos, and home movies, the film charts a restless trajectory: early success, underground acclaim, addiction, public collapse, and the slow, deliberate work of rebuilding a life on one’s own terms.
Behind the scenes footage from early music videos, vintage tour clips, and present-day studio conversations collide with moments of humor, tenderness, and brutal honesty. The result is neither a redemption arc nor a nostalgia piece, but a meditation on what it means to outlive the versions of yourself that no longer serve you.
The Pain and The Power asks what remains after belief systems fail, relationships end, and the spotlight moves on; and how art can transform damage into something communal, generous, and alive.
Film Screenings:
Aug 26 London, UK @ Multi Dimension Independent Film Festival
Sept 9 Boise, ID @ Idaho Film Society
Sept 11 Bend, OR @ Tin Pan Theater
Sept 12 Portland, OR @ Clinton Street Theater
Sept 13 Seattle, WA @ SIFF Film Center
Sept 15 Spokane, WA @ Magic Lantern on Main
Sept 17 Baker City, OR @ Churchill Baker
Sept 18 Eugene, OR @ Art House
Dec 14 Oslo, Norway @ Director’s Cut International Film Festival
March 21 Athens, Greece @ Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival
