BRIEF SYNOPSIS In Greendale, Neil Young has made what he calls a “musical novel” which tells the story of a family, the murder of a cop and the evolution of a young girl named Sun Green. Not a concert film, Young himself shot actors on locations on his native Northern California home turf to create his Greendale, a rural town that is a microcosm of a world in crisis. In essence, Greendale is a tale of collective awakening told through ten interlinking songs performed by Young and his longtime amigos Crazy Horse, who never appear in the film, but Neil’s distinctive voice is heard singing the story as well as the dialogue of his lip-synching actors. It opens on the front porch of the Green family farmhouse, where Grandpa and cousin Jed are reading the morning paper and chatting, as Young begins to reveal his Greendale - "a little love and affection in everything you do – makes the world a better place.” As the story unfolds, a policeman is gunned down and Jed is taken to the jailhouse. A family and a town grieve. Grandpa fatally confronts the media’s intrusive onslaught in times of human misery. The old man’s granddaughter, Sun Green, moved by Grandpa’s idealism, becomes an activist on the day of his passing – first taking on the energy conglomerate Powerco, then heading off to Alaska to apply her passion to help save the wilderness. The film ends with an inspired, kick-ass performance of a rockin’ humanist anthem that urges us towards the vision: “Save the planet for another day… Be the river as it moves along… Be the Rain.” In his review of the concert, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune notes that Greendale is “…stuffed with ideas, in many ways a summation of everything Young has stood for in his fascinating career: the nurturing strength of family, respect for elders, the sacredness of nature and youth, the corrupt invasiveness of political and economic institutions, and the power of a really loud guitar to cut through all the distraction.