Tonight at Garden Café there will be a screening of the movie "Viva Les Amis," a documentary about the funky, small coffee shop in Austin, Les Amis, that was part of the actual real weird movement prior to everyone figuring out 1) Austin was, in fact, a little weird and 2) weird is "okay," despite what we've been told all our lives. Problem is, when weird succumbs to ubiquity, it looses its appeal. Weird when everyone else is weird is normal. And there's no parking.
Tonight Mark Wootton of Garden Café, a locally-driven East Dallas neighborhood spot that is backed up by a huge garden, will screen the movie in what he hopes is the first in a series of films.
Les Amis ("Lazy Me," perfect) was a Parisian-inspired and fervently bohemian café on the skirts of the UT campus for 27 years. Now, it's a Starbucks. Several years ago Nancy Higgins produced the documentary "Viva Les Amis" that looks at the culture around the café and Austin as a whole.
"The story is pretty relevant to us," says Wootton, "because the film really looks at the general story of small, local institutions in America. Particularly, how hard it can be for them to continue to be relevant in the face of corporate competition with a seemingly endless supply of cash."
There will be an a la carte dinner from 6 to 8:30 p.m. and, as always, it's BYOB. The movie starts at 8 p.m. They kindly request you RSVP to the event via Eventbrite.
