Dependence and demarcation, one's own position in a system that appears open but often allows for nothing structurally. The feeling of constantly having to represent something, even when one no longer knows if one is anything at all. A montage of documentary material, staged body images, and urban spaces through the filter of depression.
Made on a wind-up Bolex camera, The Sound of Seeing announced the arrival of 21-year-old filmmaker Tony Williams. Based around a painter and a composer wandering the city (and beyond), the film meshes music and imagery to show the duo taking inspiration from their surroundings.
A pair wander the streets of Warsaw, meeting famous Polish musicians.
Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.
Tough contract killers and secret organizations operating worldwide in a murderous battle for a relic that hides much more than just a simple instrument. The merciless hunt for the guitar of the "King of Rock'n Roll" leaves a trail of violence and death in its wake.
Brilliantly mixing animated sequences and archival footage, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre paints a touching portrait of virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson.
The documentary film on the life and legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk – a one of a kind musician, personality, activist and windmill slayer who despite being blind, becoming paralyzed, and facing America’s racial injustices - did not relent.
Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.
Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.
Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius.
Crazy is the story of a legendary guitar player who emerged from Nashville in the 1950s. Blessed with incomparable, natural talent, Hank Garland quickly established his reputation as the finest sessions player in Nashville.
An unprecedented collection by Afrobeat legend Femi Kuti, Live At The Shrine includes both a concert film/DVD documentary and a live concert CD, singularly conveying the beauty and joy of Afrobeat music – a combustible cocktail fusing jazz, funk, and traditional African music – while also communicating it’s fascinating roots and politics which began with Femi’s father Fela Kuti, the creator and godfather of Afrobeat. Live At The Shrine takes place in the Kuti family’s hometown of Lagos at the Africa Shrine, where every Sunday Femi plays to a packed house of revelers. With music as his weapon of choice and the Africa Shrine a temple of protest song, Femi continues his father’s fight, railing against the corrupt Nigerian government and staunchly defending PanAfricanism. Capturing this experience through interviews, street scenes, and the music itself, Live At The Shrine captures the spirit, passion, and hope, of a man and a people who are fighting.
Don Letts's hilarious and colourful profile of the godfather of funk, whose 50-year career has defined the genre. From his 1950s days running a doo-wop group out of the back of his barber store, through the madness of the monster Parliament/Funkadelic machine of the 70s to his late 90s hip-hop collaborations with Dre and Snoop, George Clinton has inspired generations of imitators. Contributors include Outkast's Andre 3000 and Macy Gray.
It is about a music school in Philadelphia, The Paul Green School of Rock Music, run by Paul Green that teaches kids ages 9 to 17 how to play rock music and be rock stars. Paul Green teaches his students how to play music such as Black Sabbath and Frank Zappa better than anyone expects them to by using a unique style of teaching that includes getting very angry and acting childish.
The daughter of a preacher becomes the centerpiece for a conservative political campaign but finds herself falling in love with a woman.
A documentary that explores the challenges that a life in music can bring.
During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in a basement, unseen for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America's history lost — until now.
In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.
When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds himself succumbing to his old habits.