- Filmmaker retraces Oakies and 55 Hollywood film locations in rural California, has three heart attacks, and uses them to create a snapshot of white male victimization in the Trump era. Experimental film that documents ground-zero for mutual contempt in the red- versus blue-state culture wars. Kern County in the Central Valley, promotes itself as either 'the most red-states county in 'blue-states' California,' or with the boast: 'They call us the Texas of California.' Even as it condemns Hollywood 'elites,' Kern actively solicits Hollywood studios to film in Kern by offering them generous tax breaks. 'Land Hacks' details how rural folks and urban elites complicate each other when they 'partner' to make films. Film digs through a century of Hollywood images and rural landscapes as 'mind hacks'; as ideological disruptions that echo heart blockages or that reinforce Kern's extraction economies and 'land hacks': mining, oil drilling, industrial farming, and prison outsourcing.
- Background. Kern County, in California's Central Valley, alternately promotes itself as the "most red-states county in blue-state California"; or proudly boasts as part of its economic development campaign: "They call us the Texas of California." Profitable oil, fracking, mining, farming, defense, and private prison industries give Kern one of the highest GDPs in the nation, even as almost half of the residents of some of the cities featured in the film (Boron) are on public assistance. The UK Guardian also described Kern as the "killingest county in the U.S."-with the highest rate of citizen killings by police officers, per capita, in the country. Yet even as it condemns "Hollywood elites" and "sanctuary cities" Kern actively solicits Hollywood studios to come to Kern locations to film by offering them generous tax breaks. This film looks at the interactions between rural conservative values of the host county and the elitism of media visitors from urban centers. Over a century, 500 feature films and nearly 1000 total productions have been filmed in Kern County. All of this media and filmic representation have created a vast cultural "leech field"-a collective percolation pit with layers of contradictory racial and identity stereotypes. The film digs through this cinematic sediment to understand media images as "mind hacks"; as ideological disruptions that echo heart blockages or reinforce Kern's "land hacks" and extraction economies (mining, oil drilling, industrial farming, prison outsourcing).
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