by Meg Ruddick

When he's not pondering questions about the state of music today ("What's the point of a song?"), Sufjan Stevens is busy promoting his multimedia project, The BQE.

The "cinematic suite, inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the hula hoop," began as a performance back in late 2007. Stevens and his collaborators have spent almost two years putting together the BQE package and making it available to fans. His label, Asthmatic Kitty, describes the package, which was released on Oct. 20, as "a grand creative franchise-incorporating movie, symphony, comic book, dissertation, photography, graphic design and a 3-D Viewmaster reel in which a songwriter's interrogation of one of New York's ugliest landmarks expands athletically to forums and formulas outside of the song itself."

A number of screenings of the BQE film will take place throughout the Midwest over the next few weeks. The string quartet Osso (which recorded arrangements of Stevens' songs on Run Rabbit Run) is touring with the film, and Stevens himself will appear in Minneapolis, Madison, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and possibly Louisville to introduce the film. Watch the trailer below.

THE BQE- A Film By Sufjan Stevens from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.