Is the American Dream dead? Dog Days finds out

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the genre of the documentary film has come into its own as a powerful vehicle for changing hearts and minds. Witness Dog Days, a film made in association with the Moving Picture Institute, which premiers tomorrow at the Austin film festival.  This feature-length documentary tells the story two entrepreneurs who battle Washington DC’s arcane food vending laws which essentially limit street food carts to selling a single type of food—hot dogs. That’s right, our nation’s capital acts more like a Soviet bureaucracy than the leader of the land of the free and the home of the brave when it comes to food regulation. And so when two unlikely business partners decide to take on the establishment—to put into practice their outrageous desire to sell more than just hot dogs to their fellow DC denizens—the results are captivating. The story encapsulates the modern realities of our Republic—the good, the bad and the ugly—set against America’s time-enduring promise that people can in fact make a better life for themselves and their families.  If you’re in Austin, you should check it out!