Guerrilla film project changes boundaries of movie-going

A Drive-By Cinema screening (courtesy of the Pacific Arts Movement)
A Drive-By Cinema screening (courtesy of the Pacific Arts Movement)

The cargo in Pacific Arts Movement’s overhauled moving truck is a motley assortment: In front, a Wi-Fi hotspot, charger, chemical compounds and grease remover, a pack of cigarettes and DVDs. In the back there are three white lab coats, a coffee table and two rugs, a small white parasol, orange safety cones, and a generator (plus a custom-made padded box to muffle the sound of the generator).

Bryce Griffin, who holds the title “Electronics Wizard,” drinks a can of Monster before taking the wheel.

“It’s actually really physical and kind of mentally draining. I’m climbing up on the truck and jumping around and it’s crunch time to get everything set up before the time we’re supposed to start,” he said. “And the stress doesn’t really go away once we actually start because at any second everything can turn off I have to get it running again.”

Griffin is part of a small team called Drive-By Cinema. It’s a new initiative of the Pacific Arts Movement, a 12-year-old nonprofit arts organization best known for producing the San Diego Asian Film Festival. The truck is a hollowed out, painted-over U-Haul, tricked out to create cinematic experiences in unlikely places. Screens can go on any side of the truck—including on top where a modified scrap piece of sail becomes a two-sided projection screen so people can see films from either side of the street where the truck is parked.

Read on at Public Radio International.