“The Royal Road” Film Screening presented by Focus-In! Films Series
Date and Time
Mar 1, 2016 5:30 pm
Location
Brookland
625 Monroe St NE, Washington, District of Columbia, 20017
Mar 1, 2016 5:30 pm
Brookland
Focus-In! Films presents "The Royal Road" as its March film of the month and notably an official selection of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker Jenni Olson in person for intro and q&a.
From acclaimed filmmaker Jenni Olson, THE ROYAL ROAD is a stunning feature-length cinematic essay that offers up a primer on the Spanish colonization of California and the Mexican American War alongside intimate reflections on nostalgia, butch identity, the quest for unattainable women, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo—all against a contemplative backdrop of 16mm urban California landscapes, and featuring a voiceover cameo by Tony Kushner.
Deceptively simple California urban landscapes serve as the framework for the film's lyrically written voiceover which combines rigorous historical research with a stream-of-consciousness personal monologue and relates these seemingly disparate stories from an intimate, colloquial perspective to tell a one-of-a-kind California tale. Shot on 16mm film and contemplatively crafted of long takes, The Royal Road is a film about landscapes and desire, memory and history - and the stories we tell.
About the Director: Jenni Olsen writes, I strive in my films to achieve a combination of essayistic personal reflection, romanticized fictional narrative, the sharing of lesser-known histories — all against a backdrop of carefully composed urban landscape images. In 2005, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle presented me with the Marlon Riggs Award “for courage and vision in Bay Area filmmaking†for my first experimental feature documentary, The Joy of Life. I strive to be worthy of this distinction in all my work, and my conception of The Royal Road is nothing if not courageous and visionary. Deceptively simple California urban landscapes serve as the framework for the film's lyrically written voiceover which combines rigorous historical research with a stream-of-consciousness personal monologue and relates these seemingly disparate stories from an intimate, colloquial perspective to tell a one-of-a-kind California tale. Shot on 16mm film and contemplatively crafted of long takes, The Royal Road is a film about landscapes and desire, memory and history - and the stories we tell.
Focus-In! Films: Cinema for a Conscious Community is a Busboys and Poets-produced monthly film series that screens films with a focus dedicated to social justice, peace, art, music, and/or community value. Films are free with a suggested donation of $5.
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