Call for Submissions: Films about Destiny and Escape in Cars and Trucks

Driving Between the Lines: Films about Destiny and Escape in Cars and Trucks

Filmmakers and Video Artists are invited to submit films of any length/genre to be screened as part of “Driving Between the Lines: Films about Destiny and Escape in Cars and Trucks.”

Automotive travel, as both a subject and a setting, offers filmmakers a variety of dramatic paradoxes: a trek to the unknown, or an appointment with destiny. A struggle for an itinerary, or becoming adrift. Escape or homecoming. Endings that feel like beginnings, and vice versa.

As a story space, an automobile occupies a liminal zone between points A and B -- a non-place where the unordinary happens precisely because one is outside the bounds of regular life, or hasn't yet arrived. As an emotional space, cars suggest both freedom and limitation, control and powerlessness, boundlessness and captivity. As a cultural icon, the automobile has become synonymous with American idealism and middle-class values (independence, enterprise), as well as the excesses of consumerism (globalization, exploitation).

Yet in every instance, a car always promises a journey -- oftentimes, richer and deeper than one might expect within the steel and rubber confines of such domestic terrain.

We are looking for films in which an automobile (any type) is prominently featured: as either subject or story space, as a plot device or organizing principle, as a concept or critique, or... something unexpected. All genres/types (road movie, family drama, coming of age, essay film, cultural critique, et al) and all modes (fiction, doc, hybrid, experimental, animation, et al) welcome.

Please go to http://www.flickeringfilms.com/submission to fill out a submission form. Please note there is no submission fee! Deadline is September 7, 2009.

Submitted by Sara Zia Ebrahimi