The extraordinary story of disco queen Donna Summer through a rich archive of unpublished film excerpts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recordings that span the life of one of the most iconic performers ever to shake a room to its timbers. From her early career with Giorgio Moroder in Germany, to later years more focused on spirituality and family life as a shelter from troubles associated with both notoriety and intimate wounds, her story is all the more special for being told in the first person – both singular and plural.
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.
Award winning documentary by Joslyn Rose Lyons exploring the relationship between spiritual connection and the creative process in hip-hop music.
Tenor saxophone master Sonny Rollins has long been hailed as one of the most important artists in jazz history, and still, today, he is viewed as the greatest living jazz improviser. In 1986, filmmaker Robert Mugge produced Saxophone Colossus, a feature-length portrait of Rollins, named after one of his most celebrated albums.
Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."
As the first all-female band to play their instruments, write their songs and have a No. 1 album, The Go-Go’s made history. Underpinned by candid testimonies, this film chronicles the meteoric rise to fame of a band born in the LA punk scene who became a pop phenomenon.
A chronological look at the life and career of jazz musician, composer, and performer Dave Brubeck (1920-2012 ), presented through contemporary interviews, archival footage of interviews and performances, and commentary by family, fellow musicians, and aficionados. Emphases include his mother's influence, his wife's invention of college tours, his skill as an accompanist, the great quartet (with Desmond, Morello, and Wright), his ability to find musical ideas everywhere, his orchestral compositions, his religious conversion, and his unflagging sweet nature.
Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.
The ongoing relationship between the worlds of punk rock and animal rights and how the music became a breeding ground for vegan activism.
A young student filmmaker in an attempt to shoot a documentary gets lost in New Orleans. Out of fear of making a mistake, he ends up making hundreds of mistakes.
"Bad Woman Blues - Beth Hart" celebrates the music and voice of a woman who enriches rock and blues with emotion, authenticity, and honesty.
A real time journey witnessing the rise, fall, and ultimate redemption of the fierce feminist pioneers of American grunge punk: L7.
This 2005 documentary film chronicles the life of Daniel Johnston, a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession.
Shoshana Damari was the first Israeli diva. She graced local and international stages, stirring millions with her beguiling voice and spectacular performance. Yet behind the larger-than-life persona and her memorable songs was a woman about whom we know little. She didn’t like to be interviewed and never volunteered details about herself and her family. Hers was the life of a Hollywood legend and she paid the price for it. This is a story about fame and loneliness, acclaim and loss, daring and compromise. For the first time, the woman behind the crown, the cloak and the palace will come to light.
They were one of the biggest bands of the 1990s. The most defining band of the britpop revolution. But as they became legends, the two brother's rivalry threatened to stop the music. This...is the story of Oasis.
Beautifully made and historically important pipe organs are being scrapped in their hundreds. Once at the centre of British culture pipe organs are now neglected and unloved.
The tale of the formation, journey and end of the seminal Punk/Reggae band The Slits.
January 13th, 2024; Suffolk County's punk, grunge, and emo scenes are showcased through the more than a hundred attendees at Caveversary; an annual celebration of the independent basement venue, The Cave.
'90s indie-rock band Pavement reunites for their sold-out 2022 tour. But as preparations get underway, surreal tributes emerge: an off-Broadway musical adaptation of their songs, a museum devoted entirely to the band’s legacy, and a shamelessly awards-baiting Hollywood biopic.
A documentary on the life and work of the composer Sofia Gubaidulina.