Film Screening: Independent America - The Two Lane Search for Mom & Pop March 9, 2007

3/9 Encore Screening: Independent America - The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop

Location: Fools Foundation - 1025 19th St. Off of K St, between 19th and 20th, next to the back-end of Old Spaghetti Factory. 7:00 PM. Admission: $5.00.

We originally screened this in October of last year and are bringing this important film back around for those who missed it and those who want to see it again.

These days, you have to go out of your way if you want to do business with Mom & Pop. One couple has taken that notion a little bit farther, 13,000 miles farther to be exact. Independent filmmakers and award-winning journalists, Hanson Hosein and Heather Hughes, take the road less traveled in a thought provoking new documentary, which uncovers the growing opposition to big box retail across the U.S. and the often desperate fight being waged by independent retailers to stay alive.

"Independent America: The Two Lane Search for Mom & Pop" is an entertaining account of Hosein and Hughes’s expedition through 32 states as they look for an America unchained by corporate retail. Self-imposed road rules bar them from major highways and corporate chain retail. Traveling on alternative roads, the duo can only do business with Mom & Pop.

What the filmmakers find during their travels is the re-emergence of independent retail as individuals and communities band together to preserve not only their livelihoods but also their local communities. Pockets of resistance across the country add up to a nationwide opposition: Starbucks is vandalized in Colorado. Supporters of an anti-big box law in Arizona are compared to Nazis. A rebellious Texan city forces Borders Books into retreat. Patriotic residents of America’s "Fourth of July" capital in Nebraska start to turn on their new super center. And an entire town in Wyoming goes into business for itself after it’s abandoned by its chain department store.

We are doing regular weekly film screenings with Fools Foundation on Fridays at 7 PM - most are $5 (unless otherwise noted in advance), and will have filmmakers out from time to time. Digital projection on to a large screen. Seating is on folding chairs - feel free to bring a pillow or cushion - or even your own folding chair!

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