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Thursday, Aug. 28: "Searching for Sugar Man"

Sylvester Park

There he is!

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You should really stop reading this right now. Seriously. It isn't that Searching for Sugar Man's plot developments are gotcha!-like, but this documentary does boast some bowl-you-over reveals best experienced blind. Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul treks his camera to South Africa to investigate the legend of Rodriguez, a '70s-era singer-songwriter long rumored dead. Hidden behind long, flowing hair and dark glasses, he sang in folk music bars with his back turned to the audience. His first album got a rare four-star review from Billboard. Neither it nor the second one sold well, and the story seemed to end there. Bendjelloul traces him to South Africa where the singer's music became anthemic for the anti-apartheid Voëlvry movement of the Afrikaans counterculture, and the musician, with his hazy origins and questionable demise, became an icon. OK, that's enough. Grab your lawn chair, maybe a longhaired wig and dark sunglasses, and head to Olympia's Sylvester Park for an outdoor screening of Searching for Sugar Man. This is a non-alcohol event, which is just cruel.

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN, 8 p.m., Sylvester Park, 615 Washington St. SE, Olympia, free admission, 360.556.2541

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