''The Guatemalan Handshake'' is a 2006 comedy-drama film, written and directed by

Todd Rohal Todd Rohal is an American independent filmmaker. Career Rohal attended filmmaking classes at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Between 1997 and 2001 he directed four short films: ''Single Spaced'' (1997), ''Slug 660'' (1998), ''Knuckleface Jones ...

. It is Rohal's

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

debut. The film premiered at the 2006

Slamdance Film Festival The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which als ...

and won the Special Jury Prize.

Story

In the confusion following a massive power outage, an awkward

demolition derby Demolition derby is a non-racing motorsport usually presented at county fairs and festivals. While rules vary from event to event, the typical demolition derby event consists of five or more drivers competing by deliberately ramming their vehic ...

driver vanishes, setting in motion a series of events affecting his pregnant girlfriend, his helplessly car-less father, a pack of wild boy scouts, a lactose intolerant roller rink employee, an elderly woman in search of her lost dog, and his best friend—a ten-year-old girl named Turkeylegs. Pieces of the mystery begin to come together as Turkeylegs sets out to find her missing friend. Cars drive circles in the dirt, a woman attends her own funeral, the sun rises sideways and an orange vehicle trades hands again and again. Everything eventually culminates in a massive demolition derby that throws all of the characters into different directions.

Main cast

*Katy Haywood – Turkeylegs *Ken Byrnes – Mr. Turnupseed *

Will Oldham Joseph Will Oldham (born January 15, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded in collaboration with dozens of other musicians under variations of Palace (Palace, Palace Flophouse, Palace Br ...

– Donald Turnupseed *Sheila Scullin – Sadie *Rich Schreiber – Stool *Kathleen Kennedy – Ethel Firecracker *

Cory McAbee Cory McAbee (born August 29, 1961, Santa Venetia, California, US) is an American writer, director, singer and songwriter. Biography Cory McAbee was born in Northern California as the youngest of three children. His father was an auto mechanic and ...

– Spank Williams

Accolades

In 2006, Rohal was named one of ''

Filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

s 25 New Faces of Independent Film on the strength of ''The Guatemalan Handshake'', his debut feature, which had won Best Film at Slamdance earlier that year. The film won three prizes at the 2006

Torino Film Festival The Torino Film Festival (also called the Turin Film Festival, TFF) is an international film festival held annually in Turin, Italy. Held every November, it is the second largest film festival in Italy, following the Venice Film Festival. It was f ...

, including Best Director for Rohal. It shared the festival's Jury Special Prize with ''

Honor of the Knights ''Honor of the Knights'' ( ca, Honor de cavalleria; also known as ''Honor of the Knights/Quixotic'') is a 2006 slow film by Catalan auteur Albert Serra. The film re-envisions the adventures from the Miguel de Cervantes novel ''Don Quixote'', esch ...

'' and the 2006 Holden award with ''Honor of the Knights'' and ''Zapiski putevogo obkhodchika''.
torinofilmfest.org 2006 Winner's List *

2006 in film The following is an overview of events in 2006, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies and festivals, a list of films released and notable deaths. Evaluation of the year Legendary film critic Philip French of ''The Guardian'' de ...

References

External links

* *
Benten Films
' official DVD webpage 2006 films 2006 comedy-drama films American independent films American comedy-drama films 2006 independent films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{2000s-comedy-drama-film-stub