Granary Arts invites you to join us for Film Feast, a screening of “This Ain’t No Mouse Music!” followed by an in-person Q&A with moderator Brad Barber and filmmaker Chris Simon.
About the Film
Roots music icon Chris Strachwitz is a detective of deep American music - music that's the antithesis of the corporate "mouse music" dominating pop culture. Since 1960, he has been the guiding force behind legendary Arhoolie Records, bringing Cajun music out of Louisiana, Tex-Mex out of Texas, blues out of the country - and into the living rooms of Middle America. American music has never been the same. Born a German count, Strachwitz fled his homeland after WWII at 16. In the US, he discovered, and shared, a musical landscape that most Americans missed. He takes us on a hip-shaking stomp from Texas to New Orleans, Cajun country to Appalachia, as he continues his passionate quest for the musical soul of America.
Directed and produced by Chris Simon and Maureen Gosling, “This Ain’t No Mouse Music!” Was premiered at SXSW and went on to play at festivals all over the world, winning numerous awards, as well as on television and on-demand. Features: Chris Strachwitz, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Flaco Jiménez, Michael Doucet, Richard Thompson, Santiago Jiménez, Jr., The Pine Leaf Boys, the Treme Brass Band, No Speed Limit, and others.
About the Directors
Chris Simon has been an award-winning documentary filmmaker for more than 25 years. After 15 years of producing (as well as doing sound and editing) for renowned documentary filmmaker Les Blank, Simon started her own company, Sageland Media. Her independent documentaries include: “Down an Old Road: The Poetic Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel”, which explores the vision of poet Wilma McDaniel and California’s Dust Bowl Migrant culture; “My Canyonlands” a portrait of Kent Frost, Utah’s modern John Muir and the canyon country he loves; and most her most recent, “I Hear What You See: The Old-Time World of Kenny Hall”, a portrait of the legendary blind mandolin player and his music. Chris’ work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the California and Utah Humanities Councils, and numerous private foundations and individuals.
Maureen Gosling, a documentary filmmaker for forty years, produced and directed “Blossoms of Fire”, a feature-length tribute to the entrepreneurial Zapotec women of southern Oaxaca, Mexico, which was broadcast on HBO Latino, and five other international television channels. She was co-filmmaker with acclaimed documentarian Les Blank for twenty years on twenty films, including “Burden of Dreams” (British Academy Award). She has constructed and shaped dozens of films for Blank and many other directors, including Luke Griswold-Tergis’ “Smokin’ Fish” (IFP Doc Lab honoree, broadcast nationwide on PBS+) and Jed Riffe’s four-part nationwide PBS series, “California and the American Dream”.
About the Moderator
Brad Barber, named on Variety's “10 Documakers to Watch” list, is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and Professor of Documentary Film at BYU. His feature debut Peace Officer won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at the SXSW Film Festival, among other festival honors, before showing in cinemas nationwide and on PBS's Independent Lens. Barber is also a prolific documentary shorts director/producer, with multiple television series, of which nearly 100 episodes aired on public television, and earned him several regional Emmy’s. He is married to artist and frequent collaborator Susan Krueger-Barber.
About the Curators
Jared & Carly Jakins are a documentary filmmaking team and curatorial collaborators for Film Feast at Granary Arts in Central Utah. They have directed and produced several award-winning short films and have worked on multiple feature-length documentaries together. Their feature debut, “Scenes From the Glittering World”, was broadcast nationally on ITVS’s Independent Lens (PBS, 2022). Their work has also been curated by “The Atlantic”. They believe cinema has the capacity to formally transcend the sum of its parts. They are interested in stories of cultural and historical intersections near their home in the American West and beyond.
Granary Arts is supported in part by Utah Division of Arts & Museums, with funding from the State of Utah and the National Endowment for the Arts, Utah Department of Cultural & Community Engagement, VIA Art Fund in partnership with Wagner Foundation, Utah Humanities, George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, The Sam and Diane Stewart Family Foundation, The Ephraim City RAP Tax Fund, Sanpete County Travel, and generous support from Ephraim City.
This event is free and open to the public.