Director M.A. Littler – 2007 Germany 88 min – IndieFest 2008 program note:
Aptly described as a “Film Noir Road Movie,” writer/director M.A. Littler’s The Road to Nod is a bibiclly-fueledcrime outing marked by stirring performances and breathtaking black and white cnematography. Former Dead Brothers multi-intrumnetalist Delaney Davidson is a revelation as Parrish, the recently-released ex-con whose plans to return to the business are twarted by a gang-war that has seen a shift in power since his incarceration. After witnessing the execution of his former boss and mentor (played by legendary one-man band Reverend Beat-Man), Parrish finds himself on the run, and the road ahead carries myriad enemies and suspicious accomplices. His only chance seems to be self-imposed exile – escape to the farthest reacahes of civilization where here can be obliterated amidst the waves and mountains.
The Road to Nod is a beautifully-lensed reflection on the space between people, and also has shades of Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise with more blatant despair. The film is rife with killer performances from underground cult figures – poet/photographer/filmmaker Miron Zownir, Valentina Violette (a pivotal figure in the mid-90s Burlesque revival) and musicians Mischa de haring (T-99), Pierre Ohmer and Alain Croubalian (The Dead Brothers), amongst others. Most of director M.A. Littler’s work focuses on the Swiss Primitive Rock N Roll movement founded by Beat-Man in the late 90s, and these musicians play a key role in the film’s striking soundtrack, which is punctuated by a raw Eastern European swamp-rock inspired by gypsy polka, funeral dirges and Hasil Adams.
Though his indie production company Slowboat Films has been in existence since 1999, it’s only in the last few years that M.A. Littler starting branching out into features, and his output (Voodo Rhythm; Death Is Not The End; Radical Man; the upcoming The Folksinger) is prolific and increasingly impressive. He is certainly a talent to watch. – Kier-la Janisse, SF IndieFest
ABOUT INDIEFEST Year Ten
Dates: Feb 7-20, 2008
Venues: Castro, Roxie, Victoria
Features: 34 Shorts: 58 Parties: 5 Bands: 3 Total Films: 92 Total Films To Date: 794.
With: Jeff Ross, Joanne Parsont, Anita Monga, Kier-la Janisse, George Kaskanlian, Eric Ringer, Caitlin Curtin, Catherine Fougere, Karen Larsen, Romany, Fay Dearborn, Dan Verel, Sara Sherman, Joseph Hren
Sponsors: Bay Guardian, KRON, cTwo Hotels, OurStage, Grants for the Arts, Redhook, IndiePix, Saaga Vodka, Alice Radio, PsPrint, Live 105, Crossroads Trading Co, sfstation.com, Complex Corp, Lost Weekend Video, Monaco, KQED, Adolph Gasser, Level Vodka, Hacienda Tequila, Makers Mark
NOTES: Film Fest vets Joanne Parsont, Anita Monga program the fest and we recruit underground cinema luminary Kier-la Janisse to “find the weird.” The annual Roller Disco and Lebowski parties start getting huge. Oh and we had a mechanical bull at the Opening Night party. This is also the last year we rent the Castro for opening night. And the year we get into a fight with a distributor over our midnight screening of Paranormal Activity, one week after it sold for big bucks at Slamdance. They insisted we cancel the show. We showed it anyway, of course. And our audience got to see the filmmaker’s original ending before the studio changed it for it’s wide release. This was not our first (or last) fight with a Hollywood studio.
