Dir. Matt McCormick 70 minutes/USA (2012) Alberta Premiere

About the Film

An experimental documentary based on the re-creation of a 3,200 mile road-trip made in 1958 by four Seattle women who thoroughly documented their journey in an elaborate scrapbook. Fifty years later, Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick found that scrapbook in a thrift store, and in 2010 set out on the road, following their route as precisely as possible and searching out every stop in which the ladies had documented. Patiently shot with an observational and voyeuristic approach, The Great Northwest is a lyrical time-capsule that explores the fragility of history while documenting the present.

About the Director

Matt McCormick is a filmmaker and artist who lives in Portland Oregon. His work crosses mediums and defies genre distinctions to fashion witty, abstract observations of contemporary culture and the urban landscape. He has had three films screen at the Sundance Film Festival, and has had work screened or exhibited at MoMA, The Serpentine Gallery, The Oslo Museum of Modern Art, the Reykjavik Art Museum, The Seattle Art Museum, and in 2007 he was selected to participate in both the Moscow Biennial and Art Basil. He has received awards including Best Short Film from the San Francisco International Film Fest, Best Experimental from the New York Underground Film Fest, and Best Narrative from the Ann Arbor Film Fest, and his film The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal was named in ‘Top 10 / Best of 2002’ lists in both The Village Voice and Art Forum magazine.