Showing posts with label Sound Vision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sound Vision. Show all posts
From today's release --
“We have been screening music documentaries since day one of the Milwaukee Film Festival, but last year was the first time we pulled them together into their own program, Sound Vision,” explains Artistic & Executive Director Jonathan Jackson. “Milwaukee's music community didn't let us down—the films were incredibly well-attended. I'm really looking forward to screening my all-time personal favorite, Stop Making Sense, alongside the rest of these varied, soon-to-be classic music docs.”
Sound Vision’s Media Sponsors: WMSE 91.7FM & The Pabst Theater
SOUND VISION LINE-UP:
Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker
(USA / 2013 / Director: Lily Keber)
He toured with Aretha Franklin, recorded with Little Richard and mentored a young Harry Connick Jr.; yet despite his standing in the New Orleans jazz scene, James Booker, the self-described “Black Liberace,” remains mostly unknown. That won’t long be the case with Bayou Maharajah, an incisive look at the man Dr. John called “the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced.” Using never-before-seen concert footage, director Lily Keber has crafted a joyous yet unsparing look at a man whose wild imagination and destructive appetites found their only outlet in his virtuoso piano playing.
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me
(USA / 2012 / Director: Drew DeNicola)
In the early ’70s, alternative rock forefathers Big Star released three albums that, while critically acclaimed,disappeared due to poor record sales. As decades passed, their legend grew, influencing such rock luminaries as R.E.M., The Flaming Lips and Wilco, while seeing all three albums land on the Rolling Stone top-500-of-all-time list. Even with this renaissance, their amazing story has never been properly told until now. It’s a moving portrait of what is arguably rock music's greatest cult phenomenon, a group nearly forgotten despite having left such a massive imprint on the rock ’n’ roll landscape.Brothers Hypnotic
(USA / 2013 / Director: Reuben Atlas)
For the eight young men who comprise the joyful and bombastic Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, brotherhood is literal: They're all sons of anti-establishment jazz legend Phil Cohran. Raised on a steady diet of jazz and funk crossed with Black Consciousness on Chicago's South Side, this jazz cooperative has moved from busking on the streets to collaborating with Mos Def and opening for Prince. This coming-of-age doc is filled with their unremittingly unique brand of music and showcases their struggle to maintain the values they were raised on when confronted with the promise of record deals and musical stardom. Enzo Avitabile Music Life
(Italy / 2012 / Director: Jonathan Demme)
Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme returns to the success of Stop Making Sense with this documentary spotlight on a lesser-known quantity to Americans, Italian multi-instrumentalist Enzo Avitabile. Taking a fly-on-the-wall approach to Enzo’s musical process and life story (doubling as a gorgeous portrait of Naples in the process), the film is host to remarkable jam sessions between the versatile Avitabile and a collection of amazing world music talents all performing sonic wizardry on rare and bizarre instruments native to their home countries. It’s a fascinating look at a remarkable life, filled to the brim with unforgettable musical moments.
The Girls in the Band
(USA / 2011 / Director: Judy Chaikin)
An award-winning look at the untold stories of female jazz and big band instrumentalists and the uphill climb they faced just to be heard, The Girls in the Band shines an entertaining light on women cast to the margins of jazz history. Subject to punishing sexism and racism, these women powered through all obstacles with good humor, steadfast determination and musical mastery as their guide. This long-overdue celebration showcases their groundbreaking journeys from the late ’30s all the way to today (influencing contemporaries such as Grammy-winner Esperanza Spalding) in a “real crowd-pleaser” that “may prompt a rewrite of jazz history” (Robert Koehler, Variety).
Muscle Shoals
(USA / 2012 / Director: Greg “Freddy” Camalier)
“Free Bird,” “I’ll Take You There,” “Brown Sugar” — the tiny Alabama town of Muscle Shoals is home to these and many more hit records that shaped the course of popular music. This rousing doc takes a look at the people (Rick Hall and “The Swampers,” his genius rhythm section) behind the town's sound, whose legendary FAME studio became a creative oasis where talent trumped skin color in an age and state where segregation ruled the day. Jagger, Aretha, Simon and Bono all lend their voices to a documentary that showcases the lasting power of the Muscle Shoals sound.Narco Cultura
(USA / 2012 / Director: Shaul Schwarz)
In Ciudad Juarez, thousands of homicide cases overtax the crime scene units as drug cartels slowly tilt the system’s odds in their favor. Meanwhile, across the border, nestled in the safe embrace of El Paso, Texas, musicians work feverishly to meet growing demand for narco-corridos, waltz-like ballads that lionize the blood-soaked escapades of traffickers and kingpins (who play them over police radio channels in the wake of their violent acts) idolized for having escaped poverty and squalor. Cutting between these disparate scenes and showcasing a largely unknown counterculture taking hold across both borders, director Shaul Schwarz examines how a calamitous lifestyle remains so appealing as Narco Cultura continues to grow.
Stop Making Sense
(USA / 1984 / Director: Jonathan Demme)
Only the greatest concert film ever made, Jonathan Demme’s stunning collaboration with Talking Heads is a high-energy spectacle that gathers momentum throughout, allowing us to get swept up in the boundless energy of charismatic frontman David "Don't Touch Me, I'm a Real Live Wire" Byrne. Demme smartly trains his camera on the performers, allowing the band’s kinetic performance to rule the day in an environment where eminently danceable tunes coexist alongside ingenious stagecraft. A must-see for fans of concert films, this 35 mm screening is a “Once in a Lifetime” experience of a towering achievement liable to leave MFF audiences dancing in the aisles.
In addition to the films, Milwaukee Film is also proud to partner with The Hotel Foster to present Soundtrack, their second annual live music series. Featuring live music for 14 straight nights (every night of the festival except Opening Night).
The 2013 Milwaukee Film Festival runs September 26 – October 10, 2013.
For more information on Sound Vision and the rest of the 2013 Milwaukee Film Festival, visit mkefilm.org.
Watch this space for more coverage all the way through the 2013 festival.
Look...
Sometimes doing what I do, you get caught up in everything and you just miss things when you first find out about them - my pile of DVD's to catch up on is a testament to that. So today I decided YOU NEED TO BE CAUGHT UP on what is happening with Milwaukee Film.
Today they made their latest announcement...their Sound Vision lineup for this year's festival.
Always a favorite for me...this is the series that always will have you tapping your toes in the aisles, remembering some of your favorite acts, and learning about other special musical visionaries that you may never have known about.
From the Milwaukee Film Release...
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| Stop Making Sense |
Blyth Meier, Marketing Director for Milwaukee Film and programmer for Sound Vision is ecstatic about this year’s riveting lineup:
“20,000 Days on Earth–about the enigmatic musician, writer and poet Nick Cave–is one I’m incredibly excited to bring to Milwaukee. The timing on this is fantastic as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds recently performed here and left us all in awe. What makes it even more special to me on a personal level is that the first time I watched 20,000 Dayswas at Sundance, sitting across from Cave himself. It was surreal,” shares Blyth. On why she programmed The Talking Heads documentary for the second year in a row, Blyth explains, “Last year's screening of Stop Making Sense became a gigantic dance party–how could we not show it again this year for its 30th anniversary?”
And Blyth has been someone I trust!
The program is sponsored this year by WMSE 91.7FM and The Pabst Theater
See the full list on the Milwaukee Film website - Sound Vision Lineup
along with Trailers and More!
But they haven't just announced Sound Vision recently...also they announce a REALLY Cool food related program.
Let's face it food at the box office has produced some totally memorable films this year. From the recently released The Hundred-Foot Journey to the inspired Chef ... food on the bigscreen has been truly appetizing.
So it makes PERFECT sense that the place where I was introduced to the magical film about wine (SOMM) and the indepth and emotional film about the love with food in all types of restaurants (Spinning Plates).
From the Milwaukee Film Release
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| Starfish Throwers |
“We have such a strong food heritage in Milwaukee thanks to the diverse communities that settled here–it only seems fitting to introduce Film Feast to the Festival. The films screening as part of the program are as much about the food itself–the preparation and consumption–as they are about the incredible life and culture around them. We’re acknowledging both with an incredible range of films that go beyond standard food documentaries,” shares Jonathan Jackson, Artistic and Executive Director for Milwaukee Film.
The program is presented by The Bartlotta Restaurants and the Media Sponsor is OnMilwaukee.com
That's just the last two announcements from Milwaukee Film. I love the festival, but know that by the time it hits, since we missed summer here, it will be on the way to cooler days....and I don't want to let summer go. But if I have to...there's nothing better than to get me in the theater with a great festival.
The 6th Annual Milwaukee Film Festival will be held September 25-October 9, 2014.