Portrait of the popular folk singer André Hazes. He was followed for several months by filmmaker John Appel. Love, hope, happiness, sadness, concerts, family, and fans play a major role in his life. Appel filmed Hazes during performances and business meetings, as well as at home with his family and during a vacation in Benidorm. The result is both hilarious and moving at times.
This intimate look at Éliane Radigue, French pioneer of minimalist and electro-acoustic music, explores the sensory singularity of her "sound sculpture" and its meditative virtues.
The young American Pablo Menéndez came to Cuba to study Music at the National School of Art. Here he formed a family and became one more Cuban. Member of the Sound Experimentation Group of ICAIC and promoter of the teaching of the electric guitar in Cuba, he is, together with his group Mezcla, one of our most original musicians.
On June 13, 1978, the punk bands the Cramps and the Mutants played a free show for psychiatric patients at the Napa State Hospital in California. We Were There to Be There chronicles the people, politics, and cultural currents that led to the show and its live recording.
Transformer was universally praised for its well-constructed anatomy of a touchstone album. Now expanded to interweave the original broadcast version with the bonus features on the original disc, the story appropriately begins with Reed remembering his days with the Velvet Underground and the importance of Andy Warhol in making them a New York-based phenomenon. These discussions provide more than the historical context for Transformer. Live at Montreux 2000 is a concert, released in 2005 by Eagle Vision. Reed performed eight songs from the Album Ecstasy plus a few older ones. From his days in the sixties as the main singer and songwriter of the Velvet Underground and through his mercurial solo career he has kept his audience and the critics on their toes with dramatic changes of musical direction from album to album. Underpinning everything however has been his unquestionable ability as a songwriter and performer of the highest class.
The Road Forward is an electrifying musical documentary that connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. Interviews and musical sequences describe how a tiny movement, the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, grew to become a successful voice for change across the country. Visually stunning, The Road Forward seamlessly connects past and present through superbly produced story-songs with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats.
Backed by an echoed horn music, the light passes through a magnifying glass. On the walls, they portrait pans being held on top of a stove.
Ray Davies, the cornerstone of the Kinks, is one of his country’s greatest songwriters. Over four decades he has provided a feast for all comers, regardless of social station, from the simple urgency of ‘You Really Got Me’ to the detached melancholy of “Come Dancing’ . Our film takes a look at a career that has spanned 40 years – we talk to Ray about his work, life and inspirations, featuring his music from the hits of the early 60’s through to work on his new album and upcoming musical ‘Come Dancing’. The programme includes interviews with David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Paul Weller, Bob Geldof, Chris Difford, Clive Davis and journalists, who all show their respect and admiration for a man who is globally celebrated. Our film, illustrated with archive footage, specially shot performances and stills, will give an insight into the unique creative world of one of Britain’s most successful and influential songwriters and performers.
Toronto filmmaker Charles Officer profiles the young people of Villaways Park, a housing project on brink of historic change.
This documentary, shot entirely on location in Havana, includes many band members' insights into this revival, and features performance footage of an All-Stars' concert at the city's Salon of Dreams.
"Green Day: The Early Years" chronicles the rise of the world's most influential punk band, from their origins playing shows at Berkley's notorious Gilman Street venue in the late 80s, through the release of the platinum-selling Dookie in 1994.
Martin Scorsese’s electrifying concert documentary captures The Rolling Stones live at New York’s Beacon Theatre during their A Bigger Bang tour. Filmed over two nights in 2006 with an all-star team of cinematographers, the film combines dynamic performances with archival footage and rare glimpses behind the scenes, offering a vibrant portrait of the band’s enduring energy and legacy.
Latin Grammy Celebrates: Them and Their Music
Electro-Pythagorus is an intimate and subjective portrait of the late Martin Bartlett, the Canadian electronic music pioneer who studied with Pauline Oliveros, David Tudor, John Cage, and Pandit Pran Nath. His contribution as an interdisciplinary composer, educator, and founding member of Western Front, though undoubtedly extensive, is in danger of being erased from cultural memory since his death from AIDS in 1993. Navigating an array of archival materials including letters, correspondences, notebooks, personal photos, and a huge body of unreleased music and field recordings held at the archives of Simon Fraser University, Electro-Pythagoras is a journey through the evolution of Bartlett’s musical time and space, softly guided by Luke Fowler’s insightful camera and montage—creating an experimental portrait that defies one-dimensionality.
Podium
Documentarian Jose Sanchez-Montes turns his attention towards the late Cuban musician Ignacio Villa, known throughout the world as Bola de Nieve (Snowball), with this 2003 biographical documentary entitled simply Bola de Nieve. A master pianist, Bola de Nieve was a mainstay through the middle portion of the 20th century, with his music almost omnipresent in South America cinema throughout those formative decades. With Bola de Nieve's famous statement "I'm a sad person, but my songs sound happy" in mind, Sanchez-Montes also looks at the influence of the musician's African heritage and homosexuality upon Bola de Nieve's unique musical style.
A portrait of a hard rocking band known for their substance-fueled live performances on their evolutionary journey to become one of the greatest cult rock bands of our time.
What is a true punk band? We sit down with St. John's punk band, Banana Vacuum, to explore punk culture and question what it takes to be punk in today's world. This new band has gained some notoriety in the past year for it's unusual lead singer and themes throughout the album. This film explore the people behind Banana Vacuum and the music that has made fans all over Canada go wild for their unapologetic true punk identity.
The death of punk icon and X-Ray Spex front-woman Poly Styrene sends her daughter on a journey through her mother's archives in this intimate documentary.
The documentary goes through the 23 years of MTV Brazil, taking stock from the avant-garde to the ostracism of the broadcaster that was the main guide for the musical, cultural and social formation of young people in the 90's and 2000's with interviews and testimonials from former VJ's and artists that emerged and became popular in the country because of the channel.