Rural Route Film Festival
Short films that take you on whimsical, wild and wonderful journeys to pastoral places

FRI., JULY 13, 2007
8:30 - Live Music by Feral Foster
9:00 - Movies Begin
11:30-1AM -After Party: Open Bar at Bar Matchless
(557 Manhattan Avenue @ Driggs)
Courtesy of Dewar's Scotch Whisky and Martin Miller's Gin

On the lawn of Automotive High School
CLICK for DIRECTIONS
50 Bedford Ave, between N. 12th and Lorimer, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
In the event of rain the show is indoors at the same location.

Book Drive at All Automotive Shows:

Donate your old books to the Automotive library! Details HERE

Tickets -$8 at the door or $5 online HERE with code: RFJULY
Ticket include FREE open bar at Bar Matchless

Presented in partnership with - IFC.com, New York magazine, MNN & Automotive High School.



Rural Route
The 5th Annual Rural Route Film Festival takes place July 20-22 at the Anthology Film Archives, and there's no better bastion of bucolic and rollicking country cinema to be found in this dense city. Rooftop Films is pleased to once again co-curate a night of rural films with these fine folks from leafy green lands.

We always consider the Rural Route program our urban escape to a more pastoral place. To get to this screening, we suggest you leave behind the subway and hop a freight train (Summer of the Hobo), or even a covered wagon (Mimes of the Prairie). The show is on a grassy lawn, so load up your burro with a blanket and a basketful of food (Crossing the Stream) and have yourself a picnic. Forget about the bustle of the buses and spy on the bears (Bear). And after the films, join us for drinks at a nearby bar, imagining that you're drinking cactus juice in a desert saloon with a wily rabbit and a wistful wolf (Siberian Express). This program is all about journeys, about being transported to new, unknown landscapes, so come join us on this rustic trip down the Rural Route.

THE FILMS:
The Silver Jews “I’m Getting Back into Getting Back into You”
(Alan Webber & Anthony Matt | Lynwood & New York, NY | 3:00)
Both a celebration and a mockery of country music, this music video follows a toy cowboy as he writes postcards to his ex in the suburbs. With the wit and wordplay of the clever rock band The Silver Jews, will he get her back?

Crossing the Stream (Skip Battaglia | Rochester, NY | 4:00)
A beautiful and simple animation, where the shifting watercolor style evokes the wavering heat of the day as a man crosses a stream with his horse in Latin America.

Wanderlust 2: Thunder on the Track (Walter Forsberg | Creelman , Saskatchewan | 6:30 )

A Sneak Preview of film from the 2007 Rural Route Film Festival

Inspired by 1990s stock car crash videos, this micro-documentary gives a glance into the sensational Saskatchewan Lawnmower Racing Circuit. In the hallowed Winnipeg tradition of image degradation, this work demeans cinematic imagery into a bygone videoscopic era of the movies. www.winnipegfilmgroup.com

Mimes of the Prairie (John Hansen | Des Moines, IA | 5:00)
A hilarious mockumentary about a little known group which struggled in the post-Civil War era of North America. A proud but hated people, the mimes of the prairie fought to make their way out west.

Summer of the Hobo (Jason Affolder | Vincennes, IN | 3:30)
A pleasant recollection of a railrider who traveled the country hopping rides on freights.

Siberian Express (Pekka Korhonen | Finland | 13:57)
An animated delight about a Mexican rabbit in love with the prickly waitress at his cactus juice bar.

Bear (Su Rynard | Ontario | 9:00)
As their natural territory is encroached upon, black bears forage for food in the town dump. Funny at times, this documentary nonetheless portrays a very fragile and serious relationship between human expansion and the struggle of a native species to adapt.

No Man is an Island (Sonja Linden | Finland | 40:00)
A elderly man lives alone on his island, north of the Arctic Circle. He keeps in contact with his sick wife every day by phone, but shares his daily life with a cat. As a rugged outsider, he seems emotionally remote, but minor clues in these simple relationships point to the depth of his feeling. Through gorgeous cinematography, we witness a year's worth of his seasonal activities. His days are tinged with his quirky humor and darkly naturalist philosophy of life ("In the beginning, man created god"), and with music in all forms, spending his evenings listening to obscure jazz artists on reel-to-reel tape.

But each spring, his fishing boat gets a little heavier, his plow a little harder to push. Despite his remarkable strong will and stamina, his agility and physical fitness, he is keenly aware of his own mortality. As he works the land and does what it takes to stay alive, alone in a beautiful but harsh landscape, he also takes his time with the preparations for his final departure. This poignant and mysterious documentary is about loneliness, love, and letting go, and about an unforgettable character who is complex and wonderful to watch.

Music: Feral Foster

Feral Foster sings downtrodden, rootsy blues with a voice like he's been
gargling asphalt and chasing it with whisky. It's not uncommon to spot
Feral in the subway or out in Washington Square Park, wailing on his
guitar and belting out notes in some fevered state, as if possessed by the
spirit of some obscure 1920's blues legend squeezing every last drop from
its unlikely modern incarnation. You can catch Feral hosting the weekly
Roots 'n' Ruckus ho-down at the Village Ma every Wednesday.
Check out his music: www.myspace.com/rootsnruckusferal

Book Drive for Automotive High School

As part of the their ongoing efforts to improve the educational environment for their students, this year Automotive High School is making efforts to substantially expand their library. Of course, the most important thing in the library is the books, so if you want to help out a public high school that is chronically short of funding, drop off your old books at any Rooftop show at Automotive High and they will be added to the library's collection. Pretty much any and every book is useful, but remember that these are high school students, so your graduate school text books might not be that useful to them! But novels, age-appropriate textbooks, non-fiction and historical books and just about everything else is very useful and would be much appreciated.