Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival

Decades before independent cinema became a fashionable pop-culture fixture, auteur Jim Jarmusch was crafting his darkly funny and beautiful-strange visions of America.  Born in 1953 in Akron, Ohio, Jarmusch produced his first film, Permanent Vacation, while at film school for $12,000.  Although it was rejected as his thesis, the film found international critical acclaim and launched Jarmuch's professional career.  Stranger Than Paradies, his unconventional take on the American road trip from the perspective of a Hungarian immigrant enamored with American pop, won him the best first picture award at Cannes in 1984.  The music (Elvis Presley, Neil Young) and iconic musicians (Tom Waits, Joe Strummer) that suffuse such Jarmusch films as Down by Law and Year of the Horse make his work a natural fit for Bonnaroo.