Sundance Institute

Institute History

2013 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Upon release from prison, a solitary man known only as “the Rambler” embarks on a mysterious journey en route to reconnecting with his long-lost brother. Traversing treacherous back roads, lost highways, and isolated small towns, he unearths a multitude of bizarre and wickedly depraved slices of Americana.

In this expansion of his short film of the same name, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, writer/director Calvin Lee Reeder absorbs the audience into his surreal universe, complete with a rich visual palette and an immersive soundscape. Anchored by Dermot Mulroney’s brilliantly laconic lead performance, The Rambler is a seminal road movie, filled with bizarre supernatural hallucinations, shocking episodes of violence, and enough dark humor that some twisted minds may even call it a comedy. No matter how you attempt to categorize this film, you’re not likely to find anything quite like it for miles around.

(Archives note: see also Reeder's short film The Rambler.)

(Archives note: see also Calvin Lee Reeder's Meet The Artist interview on our YouTube Channel.)

— A. M.

Screening Details

Section: Park City at Midnight
Film Type: U.S. Narrative Feature Films
Country: U.S.A.
Run Time: 99 min.

Credits

Producer
Actor
Production Designer
- Geoff Flint
Music
Coproducer
- Carl W. Lucas
- Alan Trever
Cinematographer
- David McFarland
Editor
- Buzz Pierce
Director
- Calvin Lee Reeder
Screenwriter
- Calvin Lee Reeder

As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected]