Long Way to Oblivion

Along the streets of Cleveland roams a group of desperate musicians on a quest for booze, drugs, love, and rock n' roll. Keith and his bandmates are tattooed, jagged cynics who spend their days drinking cheap beer, getting high, and debating the torment of being a musician in Cleveland. Joining them is a wandering outsider, a silent man who first arrives on the scene oblivious and stark naked. His unexplained presence remains a constant through the film as he follows Keith around in a dazed stupor, taking whatever drugs or sex are offered to him. When Keith's girlfriend Michelle leaves him a dramatic goodbye letter, he spirals into a profound depression, expressing his heartache through rage-filled outbursts and the recurrent writing of his own obituary. Jaded and strung-out, he drifts from bars to gigs to house parties, discussing with his Bukowski-quoting friends the banality of playing to the same 20 people in the same bars every night, and the excruciating pain of being alone. Raw and provocative, LONG WAY TO OBLIVION is an honest film with an amazing soundtrack that tells the gritty story of love and loss in Cleveland through a poetic lens. – M.M.