GASOLINE RAINBOW Trailer: The Ross Brothers Hit the Pacific Coast in Verité-Like Road Trip Saga

Documentary filmmaking duo Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross know how to capture up close and personal the lives of youth in modern rural America. Following a fruitful festival run that took them from Venice to SXSW to the brand new L.A. Festival of Movies, their ambitious new film Gasoline Rainbow is set to hit U.S. theaters this May. Combining cinema verité with improvisational narrative filmmaking, it follows 5 best friends and recent high school grads who embark on one final adventure: reaching the Pacific coast, 500 miles away. As they set forth on their journey, they encounter outsiders living on society’s margins while they solidify their bonds and contemplate what the future has in store for each of them. MUBI has now released the official trailer.

In its curtain raiser for First Look 2024, HtN wrote “By giving their ensemble of non-actor teens the freedom to be themselves around one another through improvisation, the Ross Bros are able to give their film a genuine aesthetic even if some of the situations are manufactured. Its in-the-moment exploration of life on the margins echoes Sean Baker and early Gus Van Sant (another Portland connection). It is impressive the way it toes the line between scripted narrative and unscripted documentary and by the film’s end, you’ll feel like you’ve looked back on a warm memory.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

With high school in the rearview, five teenagers from small-town Oregon decide to embark on one last adventure. Piling into a van with a busted tail light, their mission is to make it to a place they’ve never been—the Pacific coast, five hundred miles away. Their plan, in full: “Fuck it.”

By van, boat, train, and foot, their improvised odyssey takes them through desert wilderness, industrial backwaters, and city streets. Along the way, they encounter outsiders from the fringes of the American West and discover that the contours of their lives will be set by trails they blaze themselves. They are forgotten kids from a forgotten town, but they have their freedom and they have each other, hurtling toward an unknowable future—and The Party at the End of the World.

Gasoline Rainbow opens in theaters May 10 and will be available to stream on MUBI May 31.

Check out the trailer and poster below.

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