American Folklore
October: American Folklore, FLMTQ Releases 263-266
During the month of October Filmatique presents American Folklore, a series of films dissecting the textures and rhythms of rural Americana, tales of lost and shattered innocence.
Filmed in his hometown and based on his childhood memories, Will Sheff's Down Down the Deep River doubles as a portrait of childhood friendship and a nostalgic capsule of 1980s America. Oren Shai's stylish debut The Frontier follows a female drifter to the dusty plains of Arizona, while Alex and Andrew Smith's Winter in the Blood offers a poignant portrait of Native American loss and longing in the Montana badlands. Keith Maitland's seminal Tower reconstructs an unforgettable day in American history: when a gunman held the campus of the University of Texas hostage.
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Down Down the Deep River, Will Sheff (2014)
Down Down the Deep River, Will Sheff / USA, 2014
Rural New Hampshire, the 1980s. Two young boys pass their days together—going to school, the movies, playing in the woods. Images, splinters of their collective imagination, blend together, delicate as the wisps of memory. Over the course of a year, one of the boys drifts from the other, finding other friends. The other boy mourns his absence, until that absence is made permanent—the boy disappears from the town, never to be heard from again.
From the lead singer and songwriter of Okkervil River, Down Down the Deep River is an oneiric portrait of fleeting innocence in small town American. Will Sheff's directorial debut premiered at the Austin Music Video Festival and the Rural Route Film Fest at the Museum of the Moving Image.
The Frontier, Oren Shai (2015)
The Frontier, Oren Shai / USA, 2015
Laine, a female drifter, shows up at the Frontier motel. She's battered and bruised, with blood on her hands, and needs a place to lay low for a while. Luanne, the hotel's owner, is happy to get Laine set up with a room and a part-time gig waitressing at the motel diner. Ostensibly on the lam following the murder of a Phoenix businessman, Laine soon pieces together that the motel's strange denizens are harboring a secret of their own. As accomplices of a recent heist, these wayward souls and their stolen cash quickly become Laine's next target.
Steeped in shadows, murky motives, and neo-noir aesthetics, The Frontier is a riveting contemporary Western. Oren Shai's first feature film premiered at SXSW - South by Southwest.
Tower, Keith Maitland (2016)
Tower, Keith Maitland / USA, 2016
On August 1, 1966 the previously unimaginable happened—a sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the iconic University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes. Weaving archival footage with rotoscopic animation of the dramatic day, Tower is based entirely on first person testimonies from witnesses, heroes and survivors, in a seamless and suspenseful retelling of the unfolding tragedy.
An ambitious and visceral portrait of one of America's first mass school shootings, Keith Maitland's documentary premiered at Hot Docs, Göteborg, Karlovy Vary, BFI London, and SXSW, where it won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize.
Winter in the Blood, Alex & Andrew Smith (2013)