Heavy Metal Parking Lot filmmaker Jeff Krulik has been working on his latest documentary, Led Zeppelin Played Here, for almost five years. But he’s been showing it—-or trying to—-for nearly half that time.

Krulik thought he’d found the perfect screening opportunity at the 2011 Zep Fest at National Harbor. He intended to show an early cut of his film at the event, which promised to draw thousands of Zeppelin fans—-as well as Zeppelin’s former tour manager Richard Cole, whom Krulik hoped could help him answer the central question of his film: whether Led Zeppelin really performed at a Wheaton, Md., youth center in January 1969.

The poorly organized Zep Fest crashed and burned, and Krulik lost his chance.

In January, Krulik brought the movie to Silver Spring’s AFI Silver Theatre, but he hadn’t actually finished it yet—-he was still editing. By the time June rolled around, he’d gotten more work done, and he showed another version of Led Zeppelin Played Here at the Frederick Film Festival.

Now, Krulik has announced several more showings, including one in Baltimore and another in Silver Spring this month. Thursday, he’ll show the same version he presented in Frederick at The Patterson theater in Baltimore, followed by a panel discussion. On Friday, Aug. 30, he’s showing a really, actually, totally finished version at AFI. “Yes, that will be our ‘completed’ version,” Krulik writes in an email, “until we get some wild notion to change it.”

Details about local showings below.

Thursday, August 22 at 7 p.m.
$12 general admission, $7 members
Creative Alliance at The Patterson

Friday, August 30 at 9:15 p.m.
$5
AFI Silver Theatre

Led Zeppelin Played Here also shows at the Queen City Film Festival in Cumberland, Md., in late September; the Utopia Film Festival in Greenbelt this October; and the D.C. Music Salon at the Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library on Dec. 11.