I first saw material for the film that would become Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa during a DocuClub rough cut screening in New York City last year, and was looking forward to seeing the final version. It turned out fantastically.

At that time, filmmakers and siblings Randy and Jeremy Stulberg were headed out to the Mesa in New Mexico for a final shoot and wanted to find out what DocuClubbers thought they should zero in on, character and theme-wise. The completed film went on to premiere at this year’s Slamdance festival and it has had a nice festival run since.

The Mesa, a southern plateau in New Mexico, is next to God. It is wide, open skies and horizons that extend beyond sight. The men and few women who live there are hardy stock; many are mentally ill who find the confines of society too rigid. Instead, they find peace and security in the thin walls of their very humble abodes and the space of the Mesa.

Human rights, poverty, politics, artists, even odd-balls….all are well-covered territory in documentary but somehow Off the Grid feels very fresh topically. It is a trip into the lives of people you might not know even exist. Americans, who, for one reason or another, shun an average life. They revel in the very fact that they have found a spot on American soil (many are veterans and very patriotic) where they can live without the reigns of society yet their choices continually butt up against the outer walls of the world most of us live in. Police, electricity, plumbing are all luxuries they eschew so that they might be free to simply exist. Is there no law and order? The law that exists on the Mesa is a moral law; one that guides its inhabitants on a basic, human level.

This is a beautifully shot trip into an outsider community that is hard to forget. Upcoming screenings include Independents Night at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater on tomorrow (8/16) at 8PM and August 21 at 7PM at IFC Center as part of a Slamdance comes to NY event.