2007 Summer Schedule Announced - Finally!

2 0 0 7 S u m m e r S c h e d u l e SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theater under the stars that springs up unexpectedly in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great free movies year-round and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is reclaiming public space and transforming our urban environment into a joyful playground. 8:00 pm every other Friday all summer Locations vary (see below). Always free! PLUS thrilling and funny short films, an intermission, great company, and a rollicking bike ride after the movie. BRING blankets, pillows, friends, drink, & snackies to share for intermission. Donations to support the project are more than welcome. www.guerilladrivein.org Libratarias (Freedom Fighters) May 11th In the midst of the Spanish Civil War in Barcelona, 1936, militia women fully immersed in the overall enthusiasm of revolutionary Spain find themselves confronting deep gender inequality which complicates their efforts in the war against Francisco Franco's fascist forces. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Kon Tiki w/ Style Wars May 25th The most unusual double bill ever. Kon Tiki is the chronicle of Thor Heyerdahl's hand-built raft expedition from Peru to Tahiti in an attempt to demonstrate that the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands could have migrated from South America. Style Wars, filmed in New York in 1982, documents a number of young graffiti artists who were transforming the city - and the subway - with their unique art. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Hobo Film Festival June 8th Train riding shorts and documentaries, as well as our main feature, Emperor of the North. Drawing inspiration from Jack London's adventures traveling with hobos aboard trains throughout the U.S., this gritty Depression-era drama features outstanding performances from Lee Marvin. Ernest Borgnine is a cruel railroad agent who makes it his personal mission to rid the world of hobos out for a free ride. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Who Framed Roger Rabbit? June 22nd A tricky case involving adultery, blackmail and murder takes a down-and-out Detective deep into the heart of 'Toontown. Roger Rabbit, a failing 'toon star in Hollywood's heydey is one falling anvil away from being erased in a conspiracy to destroy 'Toontown and fill LA with strip malls. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Matrix OR Minority Report July 6th Challenging the laws that make public space off limits after sunset, we return to our controversial spot under the Soquel Bridge. We're showing a huge blockbuster with the hope of enticing large numbers of moviegoers to challenge these dumb rules with us. Our two choices are Minority Report and The Matrix, but we can't decide between them, so it may be viewer's choice. Location: Under Soquel Ave Bridge Wargames July 20th A young hacker accidentally discovers a backdoor in a government computer and accidentally sets in motion World War III. Nuclear brinksmanship, soviet paranoia, and computer control. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Subversive Shorts Film Fest August 3rd A program of rollicking and poignant Guerilla Drive-In Subversive Shorts. As you know, for years we've shown shorts before our feature film. By popular demand, we offer you an entire program of our subversive shorts. Great old shorts and many new ones. In addition, we offer you a convenient and central location that challenges the downtown police state. Location: TBA, downtown Guizi lai le (Devils on the Doorstep) August 17th An incendiary, sociopolitical satire set in a Chinese hamlet during World War II's waning days. One wintry night, peasant Ma Dasan (Wen) becomes -- at gunpoint -- the custodian of two Japanese prisoners, one a rabid, jingoistic soldier and the other his self-preserving translator. When the gunman doesn't return, Dasan faces a weighty dilemma. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Santa Cruz Bike Film Fest August 31st Our main feature Pee Wee's Big Adventure, plus several bicycling films, including animated shorts, documentaries on all things bike. Get on your bike. Become part of bike culture and join us for this special event. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Punishment Park September 14th As the Vietnam War escalates, massive public protest against the conflict surges in America. To control the leftist threat, a civilian tribunal passes sentence on groups of dissidents: hippies, draft dodgers, pacifists. Made to play a game resembling "Capture the Flag" in a remote desert while being hunted by the forces of law and order, the prisoners must fight for their lives in this searing topical pseudo-documentary. Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Koyaanisqatsi September 28th A surreal GDI showing in a local cave. The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance." The film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds -- urban life and technology versus the environment. Location: Empire Cave off Empire Grade Rd. King of Hearts October 12th During World War I, a private is sent on a mission to a rural French town to defuse a German bomb, but is soon befriended by the "inmates" of the local sanitarium, who were left behind when the town was evacuated. Begs the question, who is really sane and who is not? Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks Post-Apocalyptic Film Festival October 26th Location: TBA THX 1138 November 9th In a clostrophobic future where sexuality is banned, drugs are used to control people's minds and citizens are stripped of their individuality, THX 1138 and LUH 3417 rebel against the status quo. When LUH winds up pregnant and THX is jailed, fellow prisoners work together to escape. A brilliantly crafted vision of benevolent oppressiveness and dystopic angst, Location: Fair Ave RR Tracks

Trraveling cineplex celebrates five years

Front page in the Sentinel. With a bunch of photos as well. (I hear that at most newspaper boxes today, they are having a special in which for two quarters you can take as many newspapers as you need.)

A free, renegade taste of Hollywood: Guerilla Drive-In marks 5-year anniversary

Santa Cruz Sentinel
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/April/23/local/stories/01local.htm

SANTA CRUZ — High school chemistry teacher Stacey Falls is a regular at the under-the-radar showings of free movies every other Friday at various secret spots across the city.

Known as the Guerilla Drive-In, the movable cineplex celebrated its fifth anniversary Friday by showing "Dr. Strangelove" to a small crowd gathered in an empty field on Dubois Street in the Harvey West neighborhood just after the sun set.

"We're taking space not being used for anything else and turning it into community space," said Falls, 29. "It's just cool because it feels like a cross section of the community comes together, and it doesn't involve paying to be some place"

The renegade Guerilla Drive-In operates without permission from city officials, and is known for showing subversive short films — "The Coconut Revolution," "The Take" and "The Yes Man" — as well as widely known movies such as "Run Lola Run," "Dirty Dancing," "Fight Club" and "Amelie"

The movies play in unlikely spots, like the side of an industrial building or on an embankment beneath a bridge. Guerilla Drive-Ins are popping up in cities such as San Francisco, Berkeley, Dallas, New York and Minneapolis.

On Friday night, moviegoers sat on blankets and huddled together on the weed-covered ground as "Dr. Strangelove" was projected onto the side of a cinderblock industrial building.

For Jeff Zorrilla and girlfriend Stephanie Guest, UC Santa Cruz students, the outdoor movie was "a mix of camping with watching movies"

"It seems more like a party than what you get at a movie theater," Zorrilla said. "I like 'Dr. Strangelove' and I like being outdoors"

Friday's guerilla showing was the first for both Zorilla and Guest.

"It seems like more of an experience than going to see it at a movie theater," Guest said.

Movies are played every other week year-round, though popularity picks up during the summer when the evening weather stays warmer, Falls said.

Some shows attract more than 100 people, she said.

Event organizers say they're driven to provide free entertainment for the community, despite breaking city rules by not obtaining a permit.

Paying $9 for a movie, they say, is absurd, and there should be other options for getting a taste of Hollywood.

"In our fair city, a community focused on art and connection, there is no place to meet in public that is unmediated by commerce," the Guerilla Drive-In Web site said. "All the parks, beaches, the wharf, the Boardwalk, the levees, state parks, the university, and the Pogonip are all closed after dark. If you want to meet friends or strangers at night, your only option is to dive into the stream of commerce, bars, cafes, restaurants, or movies"

The Santa Cruz Police Department said that while the drive-in organizers are violating several municipal codes when hosting an outdoor movie without a city permit, the gatherings have not caused major problems during the past five years.

The group was forced to move from under the Soquel Avenue bridge two years ago, and in downtown showings, police have tried unsuccessfully to shut off the movies.

Guerilla Drive-In Celebrates Five-Years of Fighting the Man

Grassroots project shows free movies, builds community, and challenges ideas about public space

Santa Cruz, CA, April 10th, 2007: This spring Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In celebrates its five-year anniversary with a showing of Dr. Strangelove in GDI's original Harvey West location on Friday April 20th at 8pm. The five-year anniversary showing will feature subversive short films, food, entertainment, and music.
Dr. Strangelove
(or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)

Friday April 20th, 8:00pm
Dubois St, Santa Cruz
Always Free!
For half a decade, Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In has shown over a hundred free films to the community in regular Summer and Winter Series. Movies are always free. Beyond showing great movies and bringing a broad community together, part of their mission is helping reclaim public space and transforming our urban environment.

Guerilla Drive-In is a grassroots project of ordinary people from the community. Movies are chosen and decisions are made collectively by members of the small collective. It has no city- nor corporate-sponsorship and is supported only by donations from movie-goers and the work of collective members.

In the last five years, GDI has shown subversive features such as Cool Hand Luke, Truman Show, Nine to Five, Fight Club, and 1984, as well as a host of lesser-known films dealing with resistance and celebration. GDI also works with other groups to help with events such as the Reel Work Film Festival, Santa Cruz Film Festival, and the Santa Cruz Bike Film Festival.

All over the world, Santa Cruz is setting an example for do-it-yourself public nighttime entertainment. Guerilla Drive-Ins have sprung up in San Francisco, Berkeley, Dallas, Maine, NYC, Florida, Pennsylvania, Minneapolis, and as far away as Norway and Sweden. The GDI website provides detailed step-by-step suggestions of how to set up a Guerilla Drive-In.

Guerilla Drive-In has had its share of run-ins with authority. For instance, two years ago, a half dozen police officers surrounded a Guerilla Drive-In showing under the Soquel Avenue Bridge. Police shut down the movie because movie viewers were technically in a city park area and were violating park hours. In downtown showings, police have tried unsuccessfully to shut the movies down.

Guerilla Drive-In recognized years ago that in our city, a community focused on art and connection, there is no place to meet in public that is unmediated by commerce. They note that all the parks, beaches, the wharf, the boardwalk, the levies, state parks, the University, and the Pogonip are all closed after dark. If you want to meet friends or strangers at night, your only option is to dive into the stream of commerce, bars, cafes, restaurants, or movies.

For the last few years, summer movies have been shown along the railroad tracks on the west side of Santa Cruz. The summer series this year will feature special showings in unusual and surprise locations.

To find out more about Guerilla Drive-In, the Summer Series schedules, and locations for special showings, go the GDI website at www.guerilladrivein.org.

Subversive Shorts - hit us up

Yo yo.  We are coming up on the five-year anniversary of Guerilla Drive-In.  Five fucking years.  Whoa.

And we want to make a huge shindig of it.  So we are already planning our 5-year birthday party and you're invited.  On your GDI Winter Schedule the last movie of winter series says "The Edukators (or something else)."  This'll be the something else.  The GDI 5-year Anniversary Showing will be April 20th, roughly half a decade since we started this project.  And in honor of that we are re-showing our first GDI film, Dr. Strangelove in our original location near Harvey West Park.

But more about that as we get closer to the date.  Here's the reason we're writing you:

We always start off Guerilla Drive-In with shorts and previews followed by a ten minute intermission. The shorts are often activist short movies, radical diatribes, funny or weird stuff found on the net or submitted to us.

We want your subversive short submissions. Radical and political and funny and weird.  Beautiful and brilliant all the way through and under five minutes.

For example, here is the first short we ran across that inspired us to start showing subversive shorts (that later we referred to as just "The Video"):

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2003/03/23/m20bnb02.rm

Here's an amazing short just submitted to us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGaMZ2LpdRs

Send us a link to your favorite subversive shorts at drivein@guerilladrivein.org

Wouldn't it be fabulous if we had a way for you to submit shorts on the website?  Yes, it would.  Too bad.

Love,

Guerilla Drive-In
www.guerilladrivein.org