Local artist Mark Escribano's documentary, "The Super Noble Brothers," made its debut at the Milwaukee International Film Festival in 2007. It screens again Thursday, Jan. 15 at the Oriental. The 7 p.m. screening is preceded by a Fashion Ninja fashion show.

The 85-minute film was shot over the course of about eight years in Milwaukee and elsewhere. The version being shown at this screening is a different cut never before seen in Milwaukee, Escribano says.

Escribano, a photographer, filmmaker and performance artist, traces the paths of Andy, Tommy and Davey Noble, three brothers active in Milwaukee's music and art scenes.

Interviewing their parents, friends, collaborators and fellow scenesters, Escribano uses the Nobles' dedication to their passions as a means for exploring how people choose to live their lives. In these cases, all three Nobles have eschewed traditional paths and middle class indicators of success to focus on what makes them happy and what satisfies them.

Andy Noble suggests there is a likely a big word to describe their focus on themselves and their pursuit of happiness, but for this viewer, hedonism doesn't seem to be it. That would suggest that the trio lives a life of worthless partying.

In fact, Davey Noble's paintings are some of the most vibrant and exciting to come out of Milwaukee and Tommy and Andy have enriched the music scene in Milwaukee on every level, via their work with bands The Pacers, The Thousandaires and others, as the Super Noble Brothers DJ team and as proprietors of Lotus Land Records.

The Nobles' story is also a story of driving passion. Tommy and Andy are fueled forward by an unscratchable itch to find great records and to sell them at their store and share them via their record label and DJ gigs. Davey, on the other hand, has continued to paint, and to paint at an apparently furious pace, in order to attempt to sate his unquenchable thirst to create.

Especially interesting are the ways the brothers have interacted -- sometimes collaborating, sometimes distancing themselves from one another.

Escribano's years of labor have been fruitful. Using footage from Milwaukee, New York, California, Madison and lots of clips of other footage from Brazil and other locations, the film is visually engaging and the story is captivating on many levels.