July 28, 2009
The annual Humanities Film Series will open this year with “The Guatemalan Handshake,” which was filmed on location in southcentral Pennsylvania, at 7 p.m., Sept. 24, in Room 218 of the Humanities Center.
“The Guatemalan Handshake” is the feature film debut of independent filmmaker Todd Rohal, who will be on hand to present his film and lead a question-and-answer session after the screening. It tells the story of the disappearance of a small-town demolition derby driver, Donald Turnupseed (actor-musician Will Oldham), who suddenly vanishes after a massive power outage, setting into motion a surreal series of events affecting his hapless father, his pregnant girlfriend, a pack of wild boy scouts, a lactose-intolerant roller rink employee, an elderly woman in search of her lost poodle, and his best friend: a 10-year-old girl named Turkeylegs.
Narrated by young Turkeylegs as she pieces together Donald’s puzzling disappearance, Rohal’s rural tapestry explodes in unforgettable widescreen surprises: a woman attends her own funeral, a childhood TV legend leaps from a cliff, the sun rises sideways, and a bright orange electric car changes hands again and again. Chaotically absurd with an underlying poignancy, these droll vignettes come crashing together in a climactic demolition derby that marks the exhilarating debut of an adventurous storyteller.
“The Guatemalan Handshake” premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2006, where it won the Special Jury Prize; it has since been screened at well over a dozen other film festivals internationally and has garnered high critical praise. Rohal himself has been named by Filmmaker Magazine as one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
All events in the Humanities Film Series are open to the public free of charge.
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