Tired Moonlight

Winner of the 2015 Slamdance Jury Award for Narrative Feature, this charmingly idiosyncratic chronicle of lives unfolding (or perhaps unraveling) in the town of Kalispell, Montana, sets overlapping story lines against a stunning backdrop of natural beauty, with picture-postcard views out of every window and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in the local parking lot. Settings vary from the local auto racetrack to a cowboy bar, a garbage dump, and a high bridge off which youngsters jump to make the biggest cannonballs ever. The young, single mom of a delightful little girl tries to understand why her child's father is marrying someone else and a hotel maid strikes up an awkward romance with a man who's come home to settle the affairs of his late mother. Filmmaker Britni West's debut combines the immediacy of cinéma vérité with the visual poetry of dreams. (Denver International Film Festival)