Screening Time: Friday, May 2, 10:30 AM, Charles Theatre 1
Saturday, May 3, 8:30 PM, Charles Theatre 5

Director: Mark Moskowitz

Cast: Carl Brandt, Frank Conroy, Bruce Dobler, Robert Ellis, Robert Gottlieb

Country: U.S.
Year: 2002
Running Time: 128 minutes
Format: 35mm

Author Dow Mossman's debut novel The Stones of Summer received glowing reviews upon its 1972 publication. The New York Times proclaimed it a work of "torrential imagination...burning with generational fire." But this graduate of the vaunted Iowa writers' Workshop, seemingly off to a promising career, vanished from the literary scene, leaving this single tome as his enduring legacy.

In his debut feature documentary film, Mark Moskowitz, who earns a living directing campaign commercials for political candidates, embarks upon an epic journey in search of the answers to the riddle of Mossman's apparent disappearance and his book's lapse into obscurity. Along the way, he entreats anyone and everyone to read Mossman's long out of print novel, snatching up spare copies on eBay and from rare bookshops. (Anyone desperate to score a copy might try a visit to the central branch of the Enoch Pratt.) As he investigates Mossman's life, interviewing such literary luminaries as Robert Gottleib (editor of Catch 22), Leslie Fiedler, and Frank Conroy along the way, Moskowitz' quest evolves into a profound meditation of the power of literature to change our lives.

If, as Michael Moore posited at the Oscars, these are fictitious times, then this documentary serves as a sign of the times--for it is a paradoxical work of non-fiction that absolutely and utterly embraces the world of fiction.

--Gabriel Wardell

Presented By: Robert Goodman

Producer, Robert Goodman is an Emmy-nominated director and award-winning writer with broadcast, documentary, and feature credits. Goodman was one of 20 nonfiction producers in North America selected for the International Film Financing Conference in 1998 and has been featured on John Pierson's Split Screen, which airs on Bravo and the Independent Film Channel.