The Devil’s Road is set to screen virtually as part of the U.S. Documentary Feature Competition from June 12 to July 12, 2020.
Learn more about the festival here: https://bigbearfilmsummit.com/
The Devil’s Road is set to screen virtually, in light of coronavirus precautions. More details to follow.
Learn more about the festival here: https://bciff.mx/
We are saddened to inform you that due to the recent concerns involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival has been cancelled.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused to any travel arrangements you may have made to join us in taking part of this festival.
As we navigate through this challenge, we hope to have other opportunities to showcase the film and will keep you up to date as showings transpire.
Thank you for your continued support.
(By Kendra Sitton, Uptown News) — A family is at the heart of a new documentary about Baja California being shown at the Natural History Museum on March 10. “Devil’s Road” recreates the epic journey of two prolific naturalists: Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman. The pair spent 10 months collecting 30,000 specimens in Baja California in 1905-06 while it was still a nearly untouched wilderness punctuated by small villages. Their legacy shrank into obscurity except among their descendants, which include the Bruce family. The Bruces knew about the adventures of their conservationist great grand uncle and in 2016, decided to make a documentary about his work that would eventually become “Devil’s Road.”
The Devil’s Road is set to screen at Downtown Cinemas, 888 Marsh Street, San Luis Obispo, California, at the following dates and times:
Thursday, March 19 at 4:30pm
Saturday, March 21 at 10:00am
Sunday, March 22 at 3:00pm
Learn more about The Devil’s Road at SLO Film Fest at https://slofilmfest.org/the-devils-road-a-baja-adventure/
The screening will take place on March 10th, 2020, at 6:30PM. Museum doors open at 5:30 PM. Food, beer, and wine will be available for purchase at the Flying Squirrel Café before the film. After the showing, stick around for an audience Q&A with the filmmakers. This event is open to the public, so feel free to invite family and friends!
The San Diego Natural History Museum is a beautiful venue in historic Balboa Park in San Diego, California, and last Friday, the Broken Wagon Films team had the opportunity to attend the Secret Society of Adultologists’ Time Machine event to give a series of presentations on The Devil’s Road.
After the families left for the day, The Nat underwent an exciting transformation and welcomed in a new crowd of revelers, dressed in time travel cosplay, enjoying cocktails and live music while exploring the halls of the museum.
The event was a perfect fit for our project—an after-hours adventure that explores the edgier side of science while maintaining the sense of wonder for history and nature that The Nat provides. We had the chance to meet many new friends and share our love for Baja with everyone.
And this is why we’re so excited for our upcoming March 10th event at The Nat when we’ll have a chance to show our full feature-length documentary in their giant screen theater—a unique opportunity to live the adventure of The Devil’s Road on the big screen and talk with the filmmakers and scientists who made this project possible. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.
Hope to see you there!
-J.T. Bruce, Director, The Devil’s Road
In this new documentary, a group of adventurers set out across Baja California on a 5,000-mile journey to recreate the century-old expedition of two of America’s most prolific, and obscure, naturalists.
The event will take place on January 24, 2020, at 7PM, with two presentations by The Devil’s Road filmmakers and scientists at 7:30pm and 8:30pm.
Front cover of the newly released booklet authored in part by The Devil’s Road producer Todd Bruce
Buried deep within the archives of the Smithsonian Institution, a never-before-seen document was discovered by a team of film producers conducting research. This eight-page manuscript details the account of amateur naturalist and journalist George B. Winton, on expedition in the remote mountain ranges of Mexico’s interior.
Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman, two of America’s greatest naturalists, were dispatched to Mexico in January of 1892 under the employ of the U. S. Biological Survey. The pair’s assignment was to better understand this remote region of North America, providing studies on its flora and fauna and their corresponding geographical distribution. The findings of these field surveys were unprecedented, and would later be foundational to a conservation movement that helped solidify the work of conservationists like John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot.
In October of 1892, Nelson and Goldman made a particularly important stop in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, where they were joined by George B. Winton for an expedition into the Nahuatzen mountain range. It was on this collecting trip that the group came across, for the first time, several individuals of the world’s largest woodpecker: the imperial ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis).
Winton’s written account excellently portrays the mindset of the naturalist in the late nineteenth century, and provides a rare, detailed record of the sighting and the behavior of this fascinating and relatively unknown bird.
Paperback: 28 pages
Publisher: Black Swift Press (September 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0991450398
Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.1 x 10 inches
The Devil’s Road production team at the booth at the California Acadey of Sciences.
Last week, the production team and contributing scientists behind The Devil’s Road: A Baja Adventure were invited to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco as the featured guests of the August 29th Desert NightLife event.
Attendees sipped craft cocktails, grooved to some music, and paid a visit to The Devil’s Road booth beside the iconic Rainforest Dome.
Amid the Academy’s regularly scheduled programs, NightLifers caught a glimpse into Baja’s past through the retelling of an unprecedented adventure at the turn of the century—and our quest to recreate it.
Visitors took a peek at historic photographs from the original 1905-1906 expedition, along with bird and rodent specimens, collected by Nelson and Goldman and housed in the Academy’s archives, on display at the booth. The specimens included a species of cormorant, acorn woodpecker, warbler, and pocket mouse. With incredible preservation methods clear, some specimens dated back to the late 1870s.
Many mutual adorations for Baja were shared, as well as stories of adventures along the peninsula by travelers and scientists alike.
Later in the evening in Africa Hall, all seats were occupied for the anticipated panel discussion, part of The Devil’s Road Experience.
On the panel were JT Bruce, Devil’s Road Director, Greg Meyer, Devil’s Road Scientific Advisor, Moe Flannery, Ornithology and Mammology Collection Manager, and Shannon Bennet, CalAcademy Chief of Science, to speak to the film and its many themes, the collection of species, and conservation in Baja and the world at large.
Interspersed with short segments from the film and a longer sneak peek of the film’s first ten minutes. The discussion ended with a moving Q&A that offered a behind-the-scenes look at the filmmaking process and attendees inquired as to how they can become involved in the protection of Baja’s ecosystems
The Devil’s Road booth just outside the Rainforest Dome at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
Standing room only in Africa Hall for the panel discussion.
