Rhode Island International Film Festival 2009

Rocaterrania is a feature length journey into the secret world of 76-year-old Renaldo Kuhler, a scientific illustrator who invented an imaginary country to survive his disaffected youth.In the last four decades, seventy-six-year-old Renaldo Kuhler has created hundreds of plates for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, illustrating diverse flora and fauna for obscure scientific journals and reference books. Before the making of this documentary, no one knew that Kuhler is also a prolific visionary artist.Renaldo is the only son of Otto Kuhler, a German immigrant who served under Kaiser Wilhelm in World War I before emigrating to America with seven dollars in his pocket. Renaldo grew up in the immense shadow of his father (who became a famous American industrial designer and an acclaimed landscape painter) and struggled to find his own identity as an artist. Like many Germans, Otto Kuhler romanticized the American West and the freedom it symbolized. When Otto fulfilled a lifelong dream by moving his family from upstate New York to a remote Colorado cattle ranch in 1948, teenaged Renaldo found the isolation unbearable and escaped to the private fantasy world of his notebooks. What began as the illustrated history of an imaginary country called "Rocaterrania" became Renaldo's lifelong obsession - secretly documenting the satirically coded story of his own life.Rocaterrania is a tiny nation of eastern European immigrants who purchased a tract of land along the Canadian border - just north of the Adirondack Mountains in New York - after growing restless with America's notions of "democracy." Over the next six decades, Rocaterrania saw two revolutions and the rise and fall of a succession of czars, dictators, and presidents among a cast of characters vaguely resembling Russian historical figures. But, as the film reveals, each change in government reflects a deeper meaning for Renaldo, an outsider who struggled to escape an emotionally abusive family and searched for freedom within a real nation threatened by forces of conformity.Rocaterrania unveils Kuhler's astounding body of work to the world and reveals the powerful story of his life in the process. Among other themes, the film is about the insidious nature of conformity, the courage to be one's true self, and the redemptive power of artistic creation. Featuring an eclectic original score by Merge Records recording artists Shark Quest.