Dirt Road To Lafayette
A musical journey from the Scottish Highlands to the southern US.
A musical journey from the Scottish Highlands to the southern US.
Neil Sutcliffe
Murdo
David O'Hara
Tom
Margo Moorer
Queen Monzee-ay
David Hayman
Uncle John
Jill Jane Clements
Aunt Maureen
Julia Deon Caesar
Sarah
Randall Newsome
Declan
D. Taylor
Aunt Edna
Pablo Esparza
Diego
A musical journey from the Scottish Highlands to the southern US.
Dirt Road to Lafayette is a low key film about grief, and using music to work through it. It follows teenager Murdo as he travels from Scotland to Alabama following the death of his mother. Murdo plays the accordion, but the tragic disruption in his life has caused him to set it aside for a while. It starts out as a sort of road movie, then, before settling down a bit. During a lull in the trip by bus to Alabama, Murdo hears accordion music being played. He seeks it out and finds Queen Monzee-ay, a regionally well-known cajun singer performing. He gets to know her and she invites him to perform with her in an upcoming event. Her attention and his experience with her people awakens Murdo's interest in his music. This causes a slight rift between him and his father, who out of good intentions is perhaps a bit controlling of his son. I really enjoyed this movie. The story is strong and told simply. No flashbacks or dream sequences - what we get is a drama about grief and family, strong characters in an ensemble cast, and a lot of music. It doesn't hurt that I really enjoy Cajun music. If I could suggest anything, I would like to have seen a bit more conversation between father and son. There is a lot of silent staring and halting tidbits which do convey their sense of loss. But as someone who lost my father and a brother at a young age, and whose family didn't talk a lot about it either, I felt I could almost have written some strong scenes of dialogue to show more character growth. But that is a minor observation. I would recommend the film to anyone, as long as they also enjoy or at least tolerate the music.
Two estranged siblings return home to the sprawling ranch they once knew and loved in order to care for their ailing father.
When David Smallbone's successful music company collapses, he moves his family from Australia to the United States in search of a brighter future. With nothing more than their six children, their suitcases, and their love of music, David and his pregnant wife Helen set out to rebuild their lives from the ground up. Based on a remarkable true story, a mum's faith stands against all odds; and inspires her husband and children to hold onto theirs.
Rory MacNeil, a rugged old Scotsman, reluctantly leaves his beloved isolated Hebridean island and travels to San Francisco to seek medical treatment. Moving in with his estranged son, Rory sees his life transformed through a newly found bond with his baby grandson.
A God-fearing bluesman takes to a wild young woman who, as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, is looking everywhere for love, but never quite finding it.
Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.
The story of the famous and influential 1960s rock band and its lead singer and composer, Jim Morrison.
In the highlands of Scotland in the 1700s, Rob Roy tries to lead his small town to a better future, by borrowing money from the local nobility to buy cattle to herd to market. When the money is stolen, Rob is forced into a Robin Hood lifestyle to defend his family and honour.
Retired farmer and widower Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. He then has the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
Fresh out of rehab, Rona returns to the Orkney Islands—a place both wild and beautiful, right off the Scottish coast. Now 29 and after more than a decade of living life on the edge in London, where she both found and lost love, Rona attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. As she reconnects with the dramatic landscape where she grew up, memories of her traumatic childhood merge with more recent challenging events that have set her on the path to recovery.
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.