Racing Film this Thursday: Best of the Austin Film Festival
Best of the Austin Film Festival at the Alamo presents a special screening of DIRT this Thursday, July 27th at 7:30PM at the Alamo Lake Creek.With special guest and rookie female driver, Gayla Jones, in attendance with director Jeff Bowden. Special dirt track concession-stand-style menu provided. $6 at the door or online at www.drafthouse.com FREE admission for Austin Film Festival members DIRT U.S.A., 2005, 81 Minutes, color July 27th @ 7:30 pm Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek 13729 Research Blvd Lake Creek Shopping Center 183 & Lake Creek Parkway This is real. It's blood, sweat, tears, mud, dirt, beer... --Travis Pace, #17 DIRT, a documentary by Jeff Bowden, follows a season inside the soul of American auto racingthe World Class Street Stocks at the legendary Devil's Bowl Speedway, in Mesquite, Texas, as the racers careen on and off the track toward the season championship. That's the original class at Devil's Bowl. That's where it all began, in a stock car. You took an old car, beat the windows out of it, and said, ˜Okay, you sons-of-bitches, let's have us a race. -- Thomas Weeks, #5x The title captures the heart of the film--DIRT is about primal forces: horsepower and ego, passion, fuel and fire. The racecars are usually held together with duct tape. There's nothing fancy about these cars: No power steering. These guys never heard of driving with power steering. I'm telling you. These were stock car drivers! Hairy-chested racecar drivers! I mean men. I mean, they'd get in them racecars and beat it up. -- Thomas Weeks, #5x Shot in mixed formats, DIRT is a film about racing, but it's also a film about relationships: In a mar- riage with a racecar driver there are three people involved. Always. And if that third person was another woman you could compete . . . But you can't compete with a racecar. -- Missi Smith, wife of racer Doug Smith One woman dares to ask the question: But can you compete against the men? This season, Gayla Jones climbs out of the stands and puts on a pink firesuit, becoming the first and only woman driver at the Devil's Bowl. She is sponsored by a former racer whose interest in her extends beyond the back straightaway. Gayla is also racing against her husband, Andy, who already competes in the same class. From the very first race, Gayla is a hot pink hazard, forced off the track by bullies and her own inexperience. The question for her is no longer about winning, but instead: can she survive the season? DIRT also follows six other competitors as they battle for the championship, including: Travis Pace, a former champ who has to sit out the previous season after accidentally blowing up his house while welding on his racecar in the garage; Trandel White, who names his business after the Titanic's failed parent company and who claims to have the cheapest motor in the class; and Thomas Weeks, the film's de-facto narrator and returning champion. Thomas understands just how far away he and his fellow racers are from the big time, but neither he and nor they can imagine life without the speed, the autographs, the smell of racing fuel and corny dogs. Every Saturday night, from April to October, they aim for the first turn. We may never get to Daytona, Thomas says. But the Devilā's Bowl is our Daytona 500. Every weekend. For press materials and trailer, please visit: www.DIRTtheMOVIE.net For more information and interviews contact: John Merriman Austin Film Festival 1604 Nueces Austin, TX 78701 Tel: 512.478.4795 Fax: 512.478.6205 www.austinfilmfestival.com 13th Annual Austin Film Festival October 19-26, 2006 Howard Outside of a dog a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it is too dark to read. Groucho __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com