Bob and the Trees
FilmScene — Sunday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m.
By now, we’re all fully aware that the nomenclature of the Best Film(s) Not Playing at a Theater Near You series that just wrapped up its 10th year at the Museum of Modern Art in New York doesn’t apply to us here in Iowa City. Their superbly curated selections may be for the multiplex-beholden, but here we have our own superb curation in the form of FilmScene.
For the third time this season, FilmScene’s Vino Vérité series (presented in conjunction with Bread Garden Market and Little Village) will feature a film from that list. Bob and the Trees follows in the path of Uncertain and In Transit, which also made both the MoMA’s and FilmScene’s cut.
The Diego Ongaro film will show on Sunday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m.; tickets for the event are $20 for members, $25 for non-members. Ongaro will be on-hand to introduce the film, participate in a Q&A and mingle at the extended reception after the showing. As always, Wally “The Wine Guy” Plahutnik of Bread Garden Market will be selecting wines to pair with the film. Wine tasting and hors d’oeuvres begin at 6:30 p.m.
Bob and the Trees, a film in the vérité style, tells a fictionalized account of logger Bob Tarasuk who, like the rest of the cast, plays “himself.” The script was mostly improvised and the events it recounts bear some resemblance to actual occurrences, but the film is fiction, not documentary. Filmed on location in the Berkshires during the “polar vortex” of 2014, this piece, says FilmScene’s Andrew Sherburne, is “an appropriate film for the end of a long winter.”
Looking to disappear into the warmth of FilmScene to catch the show Sunday night? Win two tickets to the event by tweeting #polarvortex @LittleVillage and @icfilmscene, or by sharing this article on Facebook and using the hashtag #polarvortex.
