Unlike festivals that operate under a general theme of “independent film,” Rural Route’s specific focus on rural life brings together like-minded films and artists whose work might otherwise be ignored or lost within broader-based programming. The festival’s fiction, documentary, and experimental programs are dedicated to highlighting people, places, and cultures not normally represented in mainstream media. Each program will open with a short film by Robert Gardner, whose lyrical films are among cinema’s greatest ethnographic treatments. In Gardner’s work, life’s ecstasies are embraced and exalted, its sorrows parsed and ruefully accepted.