About The Film
Set during the Smoky Hill River Festival, the film follows a small team of organizers working to bring a large-scale arts event to life.
In the days leading up to opening, they navigate miscommunication, heat, medical issues, and constant change. What emerges is not just an event, but a temporary environment shaped by effort, improvisation, and commitment.
Once the Festival opens, the film explores different aspects of the event during each of its four days.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Having given the audience a window into the what and how of the Festival, the climax of the film turns toward the why.
People who love the Festival reveal that it represents more than a sum of its parts; it produces rarified common ground upon which people of differing backgrounds and beliefs gather as one community.
After the festival ends, people return to their normal lives, and the organizers turn their attention to planning the next festival.
Director’s Statement
Over the past ten years, America has become a country ever more deeply divided. The worst part is watching the cracks grow and feeling powerless to change anything.
What I love about the documentary form is that it carries us beyond the hypothetical. 4 Days in June showcases a place and time where the divided America fades to the background as people share music, food, and art. The Smoky Hill River Festival isn’t a fantasy or a nice idea. It’s a real happening created by thousands of people sweating together in the heat of a Kansas June.
If we can create this space where we focus more on what we love than what we hate for four days in a park, maybe we can do the same on other days in other places. If nothing else, the River Festival has shown me that it is possible to create a space where everyone is welcome. Those four days in June give me hope for the other 361.