Triple Feature: Way Out West + Sell Your House + Crystal Cross

A evening of locally filmed movies presented by JTFO × YVFF for a free night of independent cinema in Yucca Valley. Event presented by Cherie Miller & Associates, produced by the Joshua Tree Film Office. Programme movies are selected for the 8th Yucca Valley Film Festival and are competing for Best Short Documentary and Best Feature Film. All three films are presented in the presence of their director, producer or filmmakers. QnA to follow after the movies. Way Out WestDocumentary, 14 minutes. Directed by T.J. Masters. Filmed locally. Starring: Dave Easley, Danny Frankel. West Coast Premiere Pedal steel guitar legend Dave Easley travels west from his home in Covington, LA to the Joshua Tree desert in southern California for a single-day recording session of improvised music. He reflects on his chosen instrument—the pedal steel guitar—from his origins in Hilo, Hawaii to playing with the Brian Blade Fellowship in the late ’90s. Dave reveals his approach to music to be a matter of the spirit, guided by the expressiveness of free-form jazz. Director Biography, T.J. Masters T.J. Masters is an artist based in Texas. He works as a musician, photographer, and sometime FM radio program host. From motorcycles and radio transmitters to motion picture cameras and lenses, he is a self-taught technician and can usually be found building, repairing, or restoring something either for himself or a client. He lives with three cats, nine chickens, and an ever-expanding collection of photographic chemicals. Sell Your HouseFeature documentary, 1h35 minutes. Directed by Eric Foss. 🌵 Local artist. The Last Stop in Yuma County was one of 2024's most celebrated indie films. It won awards around the world, earned worldwide distribution, and launched the career of up-and-coming director Francis Galluppi. But none of that would have happened if his best friend, James Claeys, hadn't done something really stupid. He sold his house to finance it all. James' act of lunacy — or generosity — threw him and Francis into a years-long journey that just happened to be documented along the way. As a fly on the wall, director Eric Foss captured the tense disagreements and freak thunderstorms on set, the anxiety of finishing post-production and bringing the film to festivals, and the stress of determining which distributor would screw them the least so James could finally get his house back. This is a story about best friends, and what happens when the dream they share starts to tear them apart. Director Biography, Eric Foss In 2010 Eric Alexander Foss graduated from USC film school with the standard naïveté and poverty that has plagued youngsters since the dawn of time. In 2014, just as he was considering bank robbery, he was hired as a cameraman to work on Naked and Afraid (a strange survival show on Discovery). Suddenly, Eric was living 6 months a year in tiny jungle villages around the world where things like hot water, electricity, and even sometimes walls (like enclosed spaces) are a luxury. Armed with a new appreciation for his privileged life, today Eric attempts to illuminate the absurdities we all share, jungle master or desk jockey. Eric splits the year between writing and directing and working in unscripted TV as a Director of Photography. His last two films brought him to over 30 film festivals including Dances With Films and Filmquest, won him fourteen awards, and found distribution through Filmocracy. He also volunteers for DKA Cinema Society alumni board and served as National Vice President for two years. Crystal CrossFeature film, 1h30 minutes. Directed by Richie james Follin. 🌵 Filmed Locally. ⭐ Starring: Rubyrose Hill (Girls tv series), Richie Follin, Lukas Haas (Inception), Missi Pyle (Gone Girl), Samantha Robinson (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Luke Baines (A24's Under the Silverlake), Kayla Anjali (The Pitt), Eric Kelly (The Daily Show), David Lowe (Midnight in Paris) and Barbara Willams (CSI). Crystal Cross is the story of two unlikely companions on a doomed but beautiful road trip across America. Dotty, a Christian singer in trouble, believes she’s received a sign from God when she meets James, a man who looks strikingly like Jesus. For Dotty, James is her ride out of town and a chance to reverse her fate. For James, however, the journey has a darker purpose. Broken by the loss of his daughter and after several failed suicide attempts, he is driving cross-country to California to finally end his life. What follows is an odd-couple love story — not quite a romance, but a connection that grows out of desperation, humor, music, and the long miles between them. Dotty clings to her dreams of stardom while hiding a secret that could destroy them both. James, a father without a child and a musician who no longer plays, resists every effort to be saved. As they travel, their bond deepens in strange, contradictory ways: moments of beauty at roadside attractions, recording booths, desert blooms, and drunken spirals reveal both their flaws and their fragile hope. Crystal Cross explores the absurdity and tenderness of survival, faith, and failure in modern America. It is both a darkly comic odyssey and a meditation on love in its rawest form — love that doesn’t fix or promise, but simply keeps you alive for one more mile. Director Biography, Richie james Follin Richie Follin is an award winning musician, writer, actor, and filmmaker, and a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation. A longtime collaborator of Michel Gondry, he has released music with The Willowz, Cults, and Guards, and contributed music to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Named one of MovieMaker Magazine’s 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2026, Follin made his feature directorial debut with Crystal Cross, which premiered at Austin Film Festival in 2025 and won the Audience Award for Best Comedy. His work blends music and filmmaking with an independent, arthouse sensibility.