Film Independent’s LA Film Fest is about to go in to full swing at Downtown’s L.A. Live, and this year, several folk, bluegrass, and other musically themed films will be gracing their screens. The Sitch is very excited to offer pairs of tickets to three very cool films for to some lucky readers:
THE BIG EASY EXPRESS
Screening: Saturday, June 23 @ 4pm
Directed by Emmett Malloy
When the clickety-clack rhythm of train wheels speeding along a railroad track is joined by the melodic sounds of three stellar bands — Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes and Old Crow Medicine Show — the result is a magical musical railway revival across the American landscape that both Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck would be proud of. As the six-city whistle-stop tour travels by vintage train from Oakland to New Orleans, filmmaker Emmett Malloy is onboard to capture the bands as they come together, share stories and revel in the glory of making music.
THE HISTORY OF FUTURE FOLK
Screening: Sunday, June 17 @ 7:30pm
Directed by J. Anderson Mitchell, Jeremy Kipp Walker
Sent to destroy the human race, General Trius, the most decorated soldier from planet Hondo, has a change of heart when he hears music for the first time. Taking on the alias Bill Hunt, Trius settles down in Brooklyn, where he starts a family and plays bluegrass banjo at the local tavern. When an assassin from Hondo comes to kill Trius, the two quickly bond over the power of music and form Future Folk — think Flight of the Concords from space. The duo rocks the house every night, but can they save Earth and Hondo from certain destruction in this wonderfully odd, surprisingly sweet sci-fi musical comedy?
BALLADS, BLUES, AND BLUEGRASS
Screening: Tuesday, June 19 @ 8pm
Directed by Alan Lomax
Live musical performance from Father John Misty; Curt Smith, Tears for Fears and Asdru Sierra, Ozomatil; Hosted by KCRW’s Chris Douridas
Shot during a late night afterparty in famed ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax’s Greenwich Village apartment in 1961 but unseen until now, this film is a treasure trove of performances by some of the most influential blues, bluegrass, country and folk artists of the day, including Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Roscoe Holcomb (the inspiration for the term ‘high, lonesome sound’). More a ‘fly on the wall’ piece than a concert film, this intimate get-together also features some incisive and entertaining interviews as Lomax quizzes the players about their music in the midst of a party that would have been a hoot(anany) to attend. Join us as we recreate that Greenwich Village vibe in the Grammy Museum.
Even if you don’t win the drawing, the LA Film Fest is definitely an event worth checking out. For more info, or to order tickets to these and many other fine films, check out http://www.lafilmfest.com/
TO ENTER: email [email protected] with the name of the screening you’d like to attend…. we’ll pick a winner for each film at random next Wednesday, June 13 (Please enter only if you know you can attend)! Good luck!
