Rural Route Film Fest Celebrates Country in the City

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Friday, 29 July 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The seventh annual Rural Route Film Festival takes place Aug 3 - 7, 2011 at Museum of the Moving Image, Brooklyn Grange Farm and Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York.

"The Rural Route Film Festival was created to highlight works that deal with rural people and places. ... Whether it be a documentary about an organic turnip farm in West Virginia, a fictional backpacking drama set in Peru, or a personal/experimental work about life in a small town in Wisconsin, we want to see and hear what you have to say."

"Rural Route is an adventurous film festival with independent, global films that explore our relationship to the world," said the Museum’s Chief Curator David Schwartz.

"Many of the films this year explore, in very human terms, the ongoing conflict between economic factors and the health of our environment. We are delighted to host Rural Route, and to be working with Festival director Alan Webber."

A special free screening at Socrates Sculpture Park kicks off the festival. The Straight Story (1999), directed by David Lynch, stars Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton. An old man buys a John Deere tractor and drives from Iowa to Wisconsin to see his estranged, ailing brother.

Other films include:

Littlerock
dir. Mike Ott
With Atsuko Okatsuka, Cory Zacharia
A Japanese student road-trips her way through California until her car breaks down in a small desert town. She decides to explore the occurrence to see where -- and to whom -- it leads.

Summer Pasture (a.k.a. A Nomad’s Life)
dir. Lynn True, Nelson Walker
The film documents the life of a nomadic young family during this period of great uncertainty in Tibet. They spend the summer in eastern Tibet’s Zachukha grasslands, the highest, coldest, poorest, largest, and most remote county in Sichuan Province, China.

The Greenhorns
Dir. Severine von Tscharner Fleming
Meet the new American farmers. Urban gardeners, radical Christians, ex-suburbanites, industrial designers, former teachers, children of migrant farm workers, inner city kids -- you name it -- all are the "greenhorns," farming anywhere from repurposed lots to urban rooftops. Make no mistake, these are not hobbyists -- their zeal to "feed their communities and steward a piece of the earth" is real and by no means easy. Included are interviews with such movement leaders and experts as Richard Heinberg, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser.

Delicious Peace Grows in a Ugandan Coffee Bean
dir. Curt FisselWith Ed O'Neill (narration)
In the still-challenging post-Idi Amin Uganda, Christian, Jewish and Muslim coffee farmers formed the Delicious Peace Cooperative. Partnered with a Fair Trade U.S. roaster, the farmers saw their standard of living improve and peace flourish.

Lessons from a Landfill
dir. Gretta Wing Miller
When you throw it away, where is "away"? Here is a look behind the scenes at the daily workings of a rural Wisconsin county landfill. While this is a "state-of-the-art" landfill, it is, in the words of Manager Gail Frie, "a 10 acre plastic bag that will be there forever."

Let’s Pollute
dir. Geefwee Boedoe
Presented in the style of a 1950s educational film, this is a modern satire on how pollution is our heritage and keeps our economy growing strong. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film.

Truck Farm
dir. Ian Cheney
This musical documentary relays the journeys of a 1986 Dodge pickup transformed into a mobile garden. With green-roof technology, heirloom seeds and Granddad’s old pickup, Ian Cheney used the only land he had to grow vegetables in America’s biggest city.

The Truck Farm will be on site at the Museum.

Also screening are two Shorts programs. Some of the films are:

Shimásání
dir. Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo Reservation)
When Mary Jane finds a geography book that shows her an entirely new world, she must decide whether to maintain her traditional Navajo reservation lifestyle with her grandmother or go out into a larger world.

Bayou Black
dir. Jonas Carpignano
Starring Michael K. Williams (The Wire, Boardwalk Empire)
A day in the life of Willy Jones, a single father struggling to make a living as he traps Nutria, local swamp rats, for $5 a tail to make ends meet.

How to Pick Berries
dir. Elina Talvensaari (Finland)
Visitors from a distant place appear in the misty swamps of Northern Finland, unwittingly disrupting the pace of local habits. "This gorgeous documentary is an exploration of the Finnish mind and the absurdities of global economy."

Also on display through August at the Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm is a photo exhibit, Urban Organics: Photography by Donnelly Marks, Andy Kropa and Alan Webber. Over 200 prints from all continents from the Rural Route Nomad Tour are shown, taken by festival director Alan Webber.

During the festival itself, video monitors will also be showing raw footage from Webber’s travels from Antarctica to Timbuktu.

The Exhibit also features artistic documentation of the Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm by Donnelly Marks and Andy Krops.

For more information, go to ruralroutefilms.com.

Rural Route Film Festival
Aug 3 - 7, 2011

Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Ave.
Astoria
Queens, New York 11106
718-777-6888
movingimage.us

Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm
37-18 Northern Blvd
Long Island City
Queens, New York 11101
718-404-2023
www.brooklyngrangefarm.com

Socrates Sculpture Park
32-01 Vernon Blvd (at Broadway)
Astoria
Queens, NY 11106

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