Portland Documentary & eXperimental Film Festival

The PDX fest is excited to present the Portland premiere of the new feature film OLD JOY, directed by Kelly Reichardt. Shot in and around Portland with a small crew, OLD JOY has enjoyed much-deserved success in recent festivals including Sundance and The Rotterdam Film Festival (were is won a Tiger Award). Kelly, as well as key members of the cast and crew, will be present for this special screening.

OLD JOY is the story of two old friends, Kurt (Will Oldham) and Mark (Daniel London), who reunite for a weekend camping trip in the Cascade mountain range east of Portland, OR. OLD JOY is a minimalist story of friendship, loss and alienation in the Bush era. For Mark, the weekend outing offers a respite from the pressure of is imminent fatherhood; for Kurt, it is part of a long series of carefree adventures. As the hours progress and the landscape evolves, the twin seekers move through a range of subtle emotions, enacting a pilgrimage of mutual confusion, sudden insight, and recurring intimations of spiritual battle. When they arrive at their final destination, a hot spring in an old growth forest, they must either confront the divergent paths they have take, or somehow transcend their growing tensions in an act of forgiveness and mourning.

“Reichardt offers a contemplative anatomy of the fragility of friendship, bringing Jonathan Raymond’s acute, melancholy story vividly to life, drenching the screen with the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest. The film combines Reichardt’s keenly observant storytelling with sharp visual skills, resulting in an individual work that is both impressive and unique in today’s indie milieu.”
-Emmanuel Levy