Director's Statement

     Burning Folk was filmed without a script using professional improvisers

in lead and supporting roles.  Inspired by the mesmerizing and wanderlustful 

films "Slacker" (Linklater) and "Sans Soleil" (Marker), Burning Folk is an 

experimental road movie filmed throughout the midwestern and southwestern 

United States. The film follows the misadventures of three Michiganders 

crossing the U.S. in an old motorhome on their way to a mysterious 

folk music festival called Burning Folk, rumored to be happening 

somewhere in the beautiful and bewildering Sonoran desert.  


     Peppered with dream sequences that nod to Tarkovsky's film "Stalker", 

Burning Folk combines documentary-style travelogue with reality-based improv 

and surreal dreamscapes.  Strictly speaking, this film is not cinema-verite 

although I am intentionally playing with the idea of truth in cinema. To quote 

Edgar Morin, Burning Folk is posing the idea of truth.  The scenes 

consist of either documentary footage of the road trip or improvised re-

enactments of events from real life recreated on the road. Even the 

White Sands dream sequences are improvised versions of Sam's real 

dreams.  The only scenes that depart completely from so-called reality are the 

desert dreams and alien abduction sequences which I used to further blur the 

line between reality and fiction.  And what if alien abductions are real?  

It seems far-fetched but many believe them to be factual.  Perhaps our most 

fictional scenes captured a truth we are unable to accept or understand.



     Sticking the tenets of neo-realistic filmmaking (loose episodic structure, use of 

unplanned locations, natural-conversational dialog), we improvised scenarios based on actual 

experiences while filming ourselves as unobtrusively as possible.  Technical

minimalism was important to keep the scenes natural, however, the choice of Super16mm film 

and a vintage camera created frustrating delays and some missed moments such as the field

burning in Kansas.  Instead a local photographer contributed his excellent stills to the film.

 

     All the actors, except two, played themselves and drew upon their own unique experiences and

personal points of view as back-stories for their "characters" much the same way that Linklater's 

semi-real characters play themselves, more or less, while wandering the streets, coffee shops, 

and back alleys of Austin.  There is a freedom from artifice that comes with 

non-acting, although, awareness the effect of being mechanically observed will 

always effect one's behavior, however subtly.  As a director, I suspect that 

subtle subatomic changes occur in the "actor" even when I'm directing him/her 

to not act.  I'm only trying to minimize the impact of the 

camera's presence as much as possible.  It is never really possible to remove that effect, 

although, every once in a while I believe that some of us "forget" the camera. 

If you the reader became aware that a camera was pointed at you right now, 

would you be able to ignore it and not act?  That being said, I also 

believe that there are moments when for whatever reasons an "actor" is able 

to "forget" that he/she is being observed or, perhaps they simply stop caring.  

Those moments, as rare as they are, can be fascinating and magical.


     My devotion to avant-garde filmmaking is matched by my affection for road movies.  

Regardless of style, most road movies use the road as a metaphor for life's journey.  

And this journey or, more specifically, the quality of our experiences while on this journey,

is the primary focus of my creative philosophy and the thematic skeleton from which will hang 

the flesh of future films. 


   Maybe we'll take a train in my next "road film" or perhaps even an ocean-going vessel.  

The means of conveyance, direction of travel, and the final destination don't matter.  

Our state of mind matters.  Life is a road trip and we are not merely players 

but perpetual travelers who must ask ourselves, "Am I enjoying my trip?"  My 

goal as a filmmaker and fellow traveler is to capture the process of wandering, 

happily or unhappily (always both) through life and through our own psyches 

toward whatever it is that lies in wait for us out there...somewhere...in the 

middle of nowhere.


Sean J. Kenny
Director
Burning Folk: A Road Movie
September 2012



Burning Folk Official Homepage