They All Came Out to Montreux
In the 60s, Claude Nobs founded a jazz festival to promote his hometown, the idyllic Montreux (Switzerland). The festival quickly expanded to include more genres and became a creative paradise for some of the most important musicians of the 20th century, such as Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Quincy Jones, and David Bowie. This […]
Saravah
Pierre Barouh | 1972 | France, Brasil | 62 min. In 1969, French singer, songwriter, and producer Pierre Barouh (founder of the legendary jazz label Saravah) traveled to Rio de Janeiro to explore a music that fascinated him: samba. Recorded in bars, courtyards, and clubs, we find a handful of sparkling and informal musical conversations […]
Pavements
This film about the iconic 90s indie band Pavement appears to be a conventional music documentary, until it’s NOT. More like a caustic and hilarious hybrid of musical, documentary, fiction, and comedy, it portrays the band members as they prepare, after 12 years of silence, for their 2022 reunion tour. Simultaneously, we witness the production […]
Ornette Coleman: Made in America
Restored version of a classic, freewheeling musical documentary. It captures the evolution over three decades of saxophonist and trumpeter Ornette Coleman, a foundational figure of avant-garde jazz. We see him in action in New York, Morocco, Nigeria, and his native Texas. Interviews, dramatized scenes, and and some of the first music video-style segments ever made […]
One Hand Don’t Clap
A fully restored celebration of vibrant colors and metallic drums in this film about calypso music, filmed during the 1986 carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. The film traces the history of a genre that combines irreverent humor, social commentary, and colonial resistance, from its Afro-West Indian roots in the Caribbean nation to its global rise […]
Mogwai: If The Stars Had a Sound
“It’s a very Scottish duality.” With a certain irony, this film explains the bipolarity between subtlety and brute force, beauty and desolation, celestial drones and hellish walls of distortion, with which Mogwai has prevailed for over 25 years as one of the defining bands of post-rock. These football-loving friends from Glasgow even seem surprised by […]
Misty: The Erroll Garner Story
Only through the eyes of those who knew him, this film answers the mystery of what Erroll Garner was really like behind the eternal smile with which he enjoyed and growled at the piano. A self-taught master of melody, with a distinctive style, both rough and warm and lyrical, that combined swing, bop, and impressionism, […]
Me, Michael and I
Michael Jackson has inspired a legion of impersonators, but few can compare to Freddy Dufour (aka Truthwalker), a 24-year-old from Quebec who dedicates himself to it literally, body and soul. This film follows him in his quest for “perfection” without ever judging him, allowing us to witness how idolization can turn into an all-consuming obsession. […]
June
Until Reese Witherspoon’s Oscar-winning portrayal in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, much of the public was unaware of country music icon June Carter. This documentary offers a more complete, human, and realistic portrait that goes beyond the stereotype of the selfless and saving wife. Family, friends, country stars, and a flood of unseen […]
Il segreto di Liberato
A dreamlike hybrid of documentary, biopic, and anime about the personal universe of Liberato, the enigmatic masked musician and singer who, fusing urban rhythms, electronics, and Neapolitan neo-melodic song, has become a youth phenomenon in Italy and Europe without ever revealing his identity. Beyond the sentimental landscape of his music videos—graffiti, saints, joints, scooters, Maradona, […]