Festival Express is a documentary about the All-Star Festival Express Tour, held for 5 days in the summer of 1970 in some of the Canada’s railway cities. Rock legends such as Janis Joplin, The Band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and The Grateful Dead got on the train and hit the transcontinental line across Canada, having a rock festival at any city they stopped in. It is none other than Peter Bijou, the principal photographer of Mississippi Burning and Truman Show, that filmed those brilliant concerts with the help of some fellow cameramen. With style signatures of classic rockumentaries - like the divided screen - and a strong 70s feel to it, this film could be easily mistaken for a real rockumentary made in the 60s or 70s. Actually, this is a brand-new film made from scratch. The raw film Bijou photographed had been set aside for a while due to financial circumstances. Then Bob Smeaton, of The Beatles Anthology fame, took over and edited it to completion in 2003. Thus the film has a double structure of reminiscence. The film not only calls to mind the American rock’n roll culture of the 70s, but also fondly imitates the genre of rockumentary that rose and fell with that same music and culture. The stage performances themselves are quite impressive and the interviews with the people involved in the tour are pretty interesting. The best part, however, is the record of the jam sessions the legendary rock acts used to have on the running train. The Toronto riot - with the crowd demanding the acts perform for free - also gives us an interesting glimpse of an aspect of the rock performance culture of the times. (Djuna)