The 2006 Rural Route Film Festival will take place at Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue (at 2nd Street), from Friday, July 28 through Sunday, July 30. Tickets are $8.00 for all films.

Programs include: a special screening of the acclaimed PBS series COUNTRY BOYS (chronicling the lives of two Kentucky high school students) w/award-winning PBS documentarian DAVID SUTHERLAND in person for Q&A, music documentary "HOMEMADE HILBILLY JAM", and the New York premiere of "DISAPPEARANCES", starring Kris Kristofferson as an "over-the-hill outlaw" in director Jay Craven's third take on Vermont's "Northern Kingdom" (director in attendance).

Other features include "ASPARAGUS! (A STALK-UMENTARY)" directed by Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly of New York City, the story of Oceana County, Michigan, Asparagus Capital of the World, now struggling to maintain an identity and survive against incredible odds (asparagus farmers + Mrs. Asparagus in attendance); "PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA", a wacky look at the failed desert paradise, narrated by John Waters; and Maria De Luca's classic 1989 documentary, "GREEN STREETS", which chronicles the effects of NYC's city gardening movement in the 1970s and 80s and shows an irony in gentrification as relevant now as 25 years ago (director in attendance).

Fest also to include trademark shorts and short feature programs, giving a fresh perspective on rural life in the modern world. Programs include "THE HORROR...THE HORROR...", twisted, macabre, and scary tales from the backwoods; "THE BEAUTY OF THE HUNT", a pair of hour-long films about women who shoot to kill--in orange vests ("Women who Hunt"), and some who compete in a muskrat-themed beauty pageant in Maryalnd ("Muskrat Lovely"). Adding a more abstract aspect of country living is "EXPERIMENTAL ROAD TRIP", a pair of short features (the famed underground documentarian Bill Brown's film "The Other Side" about traveling and Southwest border issues, and Brigid McCaffrey and Danielle Lombardi's "Lay Down Tracks"). Shorts programs also feature a wide array of narrative, documentary, and experimental films coming from Iowa, England, Alaska, Portugal, Canada, India, Texas, and Siberia, along with music videos from The Shins, The Silver Jews, and Federation X.