Screenwriters: John Roach, Mary Sweeney

Producers: Neal Edelstein, Mary Sweeney

With an introduction by Hrishikesh Hirway, film composer, songwriter, and host of the Song Exploder podcast.

Hop on your lawnmower and join us for David Lynch’s most straight-forward and sentimental film. A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth in his Oscar-nominated performance)  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. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey. A simple and beautiful film, this tribute to America’s heartland and the ties that bind us is a powerful and tear-jerking humanist treasure.

The Lynchian Legacy

Vidiots remembers one of the most groundbreaking and visionary artists of all time, the hugely inspired, inspirational, and influential maestro David Lynch. A man that virtually created the Midnight Movie, changed the face of cinema and television forever, and brought art films to the mainstream, Lynch was a powerful force of creativity and magic, and his passing is a loss so immense it reverberates in every part of our collective subconscious that he touched with his unending gifts.