Tchoupitoulas

Part fable, part documentary, TCHOUPITOULAS is a mosaic of color and sound. Filmmakers Turner Ross and Bill Ross IV tag along behind three young brothers who set out to see the bright lights and hear the brassy sounds of New Orleans. William, Bryan, and Kentrell Zanders live in a chaotic house in Algiers, a short trip across the Mississippi by ferry. But it might as well be another world. With their dog Buttercup in tow, and amid a constant stream of chatter by William (the youngest and quite a philosopher), the boys take in a kaleidoscope of dancers, musicians, hustlers, and revelers parading through NOLA’s lamp-lit streets. They hear rappers and violinists, steel drums and blues guitars, banjo pickers and saw players. They meet bantering oyster shuckers and primping strippers and evangelizing pamphleteers. Now the fog comes up off the river and the ferry churns homeward again. The brothers Zanders and the brothers Ross must leave the dream behind. – B.B.