2002 Great Lakes Independent Film Festival

Trailer Park Blues

Category: Documentary Feature   56min 40sec
Director: Alex Beckstead

Filmmaker Alex Beckstead’s grandparents, Bill and Peggy Heiner, are part of the backbone under America ’s blue collar. Now retired, Grandpa’s constant drinking is tainting their Phoenix oasis. As much as he loves Grandma, he can’t seem to put down the bottle and make their life – after a trying half century – as perfect as could be expected. Is this as good as it gets? Trailer Park Blues is a complicated, affectionate story of one American couple who stayed together for 50 years in spite of themselves.

Director: Alex Beckstead
Alex Beckstead holds an Honors B.A. in Film Studies from the University of Utah , where he wrote his thesis on the process and application of cinema verite filmmaking.  His documentary sXe screened at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and the 1998 Utah Short Film and video festival where it won the award for Best Documentary Film.  Beckstead’s professional resume includes two years of cooperation with KUED, Salt Lake City ’s PBS affiliate.  At KUED Beckstead worked as an intern, camera operator, production assistant, and/or producer on some dozen productions.  These include Ken Verdoia’s historical documentary The Frontier Photographers and Culture and School Success, an 11-hour series produced by Kristy Campbell and designed to raise the cultural awareness of teachers who work with Native American children.  Beckstead recently teamed with Kikim Media as Associate Producer on Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, a landmark program that tells the story of Islam’s prophet through the experiences of modern American Muslims.