Hosted by the one and only Disco Diva, Gloria Gaynor, "Disco: Spinning the Story" takes a comprehensive look at the evolution of the music that defined the 70's. From the recording studios to the dance floors, "Disco: Spinning the Story" examines the phenomenon in a way it has never been told before. Hear funk pioneer George Clinton, Donna Summer producer Giorgio Moroder, Nile Rodgers of Chic, Earl Young of the Trammps, hip-hop icon Kurtis Blow, remix legend Tom Moulton, "Saturday Night Fever" actress, Karen Lynn Gorney and even Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead talk about the roots of Disco, how it emerged, and how it has influenced music ever since. Included are vintage performance highlights from Donna Summer, KC & The Sunshine Band, Bee Gees, Chic, Gloria Gaynor, Rose Royce, Labelle, Hues Corporation and many more.
Chronicles the rise and fall of 1970s New York City nightclub Plato's Retreat.
The life of the magnetic Jamaican musician, actress, model and party queen Grace Jones featuring concert performances and intimate, personal footage.
Sex Fashion and Disco is a documentary film concerning Antonio Lopez (1943-1987), the most influential fashion illustrator of 1970s Paris and New York, and his colorful and sometimes outrageous milieu.
Mezzanottemezzogiorno
The most popular breakdancer in ex-Yugoslavia, Hamit Djogani, better known as Djole Djogani, made a documentary about his life and collaboration with the biggest stars of regional music scene. With rich documentary material and recordings from private archives, Djogani gathers close associates again and creates an interesting story that testifies to a specific time in the 1990s.
After overcoming traumatic events, Gloria Gaynor rebuilt her life by earning a degree in psychology and investing her own resources to produce the gospel record Testimony, which earned her second Grammy 40 years later.
The portrait of a woman who remembers. Sheila tells the story of Sheila, without concessions or evasions. Her childhood, her parents, her beginnings, the rumors, her love affairs, her marriage, her son, her successes, her farewells, her return, her mourning. The journey of an extraordinary popular icon who never stopped fighting. The courage of an artist who never gives up. "Sheila, toutes ces vies-là" is also a journey through time. 60 years of pop music, punctuated by numerous archives, personal films, timeless hits and illustrations by Marc-Antoine Coulon. But also 60 years of fashion, through a legendary wardrobe (her TV show outfits) that Sheila invites us to rediscover.
Shock jock pioneer, Steve Dahl declared that July 14, 1979 would be the end of disco when he blew up thousands of disco records in the outfield at Comisky Park in Chicago. Ten thousand Loop fans stormed the field in the middle of a White Sox/Tigers doubleheader, rioting, setting fires and the event made national headlines...and made Dahl a household name...and a Chicago legend. Combining new interviews with archival footage, this 2004 documentary offers viewers an unprecedented inside look at the night that disco died.
The history of gay liberation traced through the phenomenon of disco. Glitter balls, feather boas and Levi jeans become signifiers of a movement 20 years after the Stonewall riots.
It shows what the underground soul scene was really like back in the late 70’s.
Studio 54 was the epicenter of 70s hedonism - a place that not only redefined the nightclub, but also came to symbolize an entire era. Its co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, two friends from Brooklyn, seemed to come out of nowhere to suddenly preside over a new kind of New York society. Now, 39 years after the velvet rope was first slung across the club's hallowed threshold, a feature documentary tells the real story behind the greatest club of all time.
For 23 straight Saturday nights of 1982, The Chicago Party dance show assaulted Chicagoland UHF eyeballs with Spandex, Southside fly guys, tender tenderonies, magicians, contortionists, prismatic video gimmickry, and lip-synched singles by a rising regime of local post-disco casualties. Unfettered nightlife and outlandish humor poured out of oddball outpost The CopHerBox II and onto TV screens. Pooling business acumen with music scene prominence, James Christopher and Willie Woods opened the CopHerBox II in 1979 at 117th and Halsted on Chicago’s Southside. To promote their venture, they purchased airtime on Chicago’s WCIU-TV Channel 26 for weekly installments of The Chicago Party. Each Saturday, the club’s adult clientele filled the illuminated dance floor, providing vibrant B-roll between tapings of breakdancing magicians and Jheri curled ventriloquists, giving an audience to a rising regime of Chicago Soul heavyweights.
A place to be at night in São Paulo.
In partnership with filmmaker Lauren Tabak and writer/consulting producer Barry Walters, we dive into the music career of Sylvester, starting from church choir in South Central LA to his early years in San Francisco. It follows his ascent to stardom through his evergreen, international hits "Dance (Disco Heat)" and "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Through his groundbreaking career, Sylvester blew open the doors for queer visibility and gender fluidity in mainstream music, leaving a legacy that continues to influence today's pop music.
From Vitry-sur-Seine to the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics, a look back at the career of Cerrone, a pioneer of dance and disco music.
Mr. Supernature AKA Marc Cerrone or simply Cerrone has been a pillar of glittery four-to-the-floor disco anthems for nearly 40 years now. If you’re not familiar with the drummer, producer, composer, francofunkateer amongst countless other titles and roles, he’s kind of a god, on par with Giorgio Moroder, Nile Rodgers and the like. Pitchfork has gathered raw concert footage and interview with Rodgers, Bob Sinclar, Dave Haslam and the man himself (who chalks-up his fascination with electric music numbers to seeing Jimi Hendrix perform live in Paris as a teenager) to delve into the mans incalculable contribution to the DNAs of dance floor freakers and pop music alike (sampling years before it was adopted as hip-hop’s hammer and nail) and how he came to be so cherished by the greater funk cannon.
Disco
On stage since she was a toddler, Googoosh has been an icon of Iranian pop culture since the 1970s. Her progressive style and raw singing talent attracted worldwide acclaim and saw her performing alongside the likes of Tina Turner and Ray Charles. But the star's career came to an abrupt halt after the Islamic Revolution, which banned women from singing in public. Googoosh was placed under house arrest, where she remained for the next two decades. Niloufar Taghizadeh's documentary, which includes interviews with the charismatic singer (now in her seventies, but still performing and advocating for women and girls) and arresting archival footage, offers both a loving portrait of a national icon and a fascinating historical and cultural record of Iran.
Something strange and unpredictable takes inthe mysteriously vacant rooms of Berlin’s infamous Techno club Berghain. A group of wild animals occupy the monumental spaces of the former power station. We explore the building together with the animals and experience its dimensions from a new, nonhuman perspective. The brutality of the industrial architecture is confronted with the beauty of these shy creatures.