"a celebration of the missoula experiece"
River City Roots Festival Lineup Set
The Emmitt-Nershi Band and The Clumsy Lovers will headline this summer's River City Roots Festival in Missoula, its organizers and sponsors announced Tuesday.
The free downtown festival, in its third year, will take place Saturday and Sunday, August 23-24, the weekend before fall classes begin at the University of Montana. Linda McCarthy, director of the Missoula Downtown Association, called the festival "Missoula's signature event."
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media & conservation
International Wildlife Film Festival Begins Saturday
The 31st International Wildlife Film Festival begins Saturday in Missoula and rolls through next week. This year's theme is The Changing Planet: A Global Evolution in Media & Conservation.
Special events include a Western barn dance Tuesday sponsored by National Geographic Television; a presentation Thursday by Alastair Fothergill, the executive producer of BBC's Planet Earth and Saving Planet Earth; and a free traveling photo exhibit and a wildlife and art show reception. The WildWalk Parade down Higgins Ave. is Saturday at 12:45 p.m.
Visit the festival's Website (www.wildlifefilms.org) for more information. Click here for the schedule of events, and here for film synopses.
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Interesting Happening
Ferencz’ ‘Seven Buildings’ Exhibit Documents Missoula’s Historic Ghost Signs
The faded logos and signs that scroll across old Missoula buildings -- the ones hidden in alleys and side streets -- have stories to tell.
Artist Ben Ferencz, with historian Allan Mathews, is helping to tell those stories.
"Seven Buildings," at the Gallery Saintonge in April, studies Missoula's so-called ghost signs through seven black and white photographs accompanied by typeset print.
According to the gallery, "Ghost signs, a dying art form - due in large to the proliferation of computer technology - are visual clues to the historic use of the buildings and the products sold therein."
"Seven Buildings" opens at the Gallery Saintonge on Higgins Ave. Friday, April 4. Click here for more information from the gallery.
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the new west gallery
First Friday at NewWest.Net: Jacob Cowgill’s ‘Prairie Stories’
NewWest.Net is proud to host Jacob Cowgill and his "Prairie Stories" sculpture exhibit in April.
We hope you can join us for an opening reception First Friday, April 4, from 5-9 p.m. at the NewWest.Net office at 415 N. Higgins Ave. in the alley behind the Old Post.
"Prairie Stories" is a collection of found-art sculptures that are part natural history exhibit and part interactive artist books -- sculptures that give an intimate window into the interconnectedness of land, creature and human.
The metal and wood pieces tweak the eye to showcase the intricate remnants of the creatures that call the prairie home. The result is storytelling of the natural world Cowgill encountered while working the fields of an experimental dry-land vegetable farm near Big Sandy, Montana.
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Hip Strip Eatery Closes
515 Restaurant, We Hardly Knew Ye
The Hip Strip just got a little less Hip.
The 515 Restaurant announced Wednesday night that it was unexpectedly serving its last supper -- pork belly, cassoulet, trout, dumpling, rib eye, traditional crème brulee, fine wine -- and then closing its kitchen for good.
A paper sign hung on the door Thursday morning, saying “Closed. Thank you. I love you guys!”
The inside of the old Crystal Theatre was dark with tables and chairs aligned as if customers might be welcomed in any time. But then chef and co-owner Paul Myers slowly opened the door.
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Tickets to Adams Center Show Go on Sale March 18
Wilco to Play Missoula May 5
Wilco, the band Rolling Stone once referred to as "one of America's most consistently interesting bands," will be playing in Missoula this spring, UM Productions has announced.
The Chicago-based band will play at the Adams Center on the University of Montana campus on May 5. It will be Wilco's third appearance in the Garden City.
Tickets for students and faculty of the University go on sale Tuesday, March 18 at 10 a.m. in the Adams Center and at The Source. Tickets will cost $24 plus fees with a valid Griz Card. Tickets will available to the general public beginning Friday, March 21 at 8:30 a.m. and will be sold at all GrizTix locations.
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Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Reel to Real: A Food Film Festival Comes to Missoula
This weekend, the first annual "Reel to Real Food Film Festival" will take place at the Roxy and Crystal theaters in Missoula as a way for interested eaters to, “Feast Your Eyes, Feed Your Mind, and Nourish Your Soul.”
Organized in part by the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition, the festival will include a showing of “Eat at Bill’s,” a documentary about the Monterey Farmers' Market and "Two Angry Moms," which links the health of our children to school food. On Sunday, the event will culminate with the acclaimed film, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John.”
In this personal reflection on the agro-food system, Farmer John begins by asking, “What do you do when nothing is left?” In response, he takes a bite out of his soil.
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Awards Announced at Film Fest
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Honors ‘Class C,’ Four Other Films
The 2008 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival awards honored five outstanding films from the festival, including one hometown (or homestate) winner in Class C -- the very well done film about small-town girls basketball in Montana by Justin Lubke and Shasta Grenier.
The winners will screen back-to-back at the Wilma Theatre Wednesday, Feb. 20 starting at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are $7.00 at the door and if it was anything like last year, you'd better get there early for tickets at the door.
Now, without further ado, the winners:
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Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
“Class C:” Basketball, Identity and Loss in Rural Montana
On Saturday night the film “Class C” premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The movie details the lives of a handful of Class C women basketball players in Montana, and as they play each other and make their way to the state championships we learn that basketball is more than a sport for them. It is not just a part of their identity; it is a part of their town’s identity. When they travel to games their hometowns shut down and folks follow the girls across the state to watch them play. At late night parties, they discuss strategy and tournaments won in the past.
But the film is most striking for what it reveals about the loss of small towns and an agricultural way of life in Montana. There is a common sadness among these young women as they talk about their small hometowns. They are not melancholy that they are 255 miles from the nearest mall, but that towns across the Highline and in eastern Montana are shrinking in population and dying.
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