While Screen on the Green hangs in limbo, head to a slightly smaller green in D.C.’s northeast quadrant for some barbeque, dance jams by Fatback, and a summer full of rock docs. Tonight, the NoMa (north of Massachusetts Avenue) Business Improvement District hosts Martin Scorsese‘s 2005 film No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, the first in its free 2009 Summer Screen series. This year’s theme: “Music in Pictures.”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSaqSWIaMSw]

The film chronicles Dylan’s rise to superstardom, from being booed by Guthrie purists at the Newport Folk Festival to getting mauled by fans in London. Scorcese culls footage from Dylan’s 1961-1966 performances and press conferences, and interviews the ever cryptic icon. What emerges, despite Dylan’s best efforts at obfuscation, is a portrait of the artist broader than D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back (1967), yet more focused than Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There.

NoMa screenings are held Wednesdays, 7 p.m.-midnight, on the large grassy lot on L Street between 2nd and 3rd Streets NE, one block from the New York Avenue Metro station. Series highlights include I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (on July 8) and Dig! (July 29).