Music Films 2016

UNERHÖRT! Music Fim Festival Hamburg

Blur: New World Towers – From Hong Kong To Hyde Park And Back

Two brilliant live concerts stand for the path BLUR has taken in recent years. From an unexpected career break – decided in Hong Kong – over an acclaimed return to London, to an emotional reunion with the fans in Asia. This film offers ample opportunity to get closer to the musicians even in more intimate moments.

Sam Wrench
UK I 2015 I 93 minutes
Fast Welt Weit

Ostwestfalen-Lippe, 1980s: In the small West German town of Bad Salzuflen, five teenagers dreamed of becoming pop stars. They set up a recording studio in a garage on the edge of the forest and founded the music label “Fast Weltweit”. 30 years later the film meets Michael Girke, Bernadette Hengst, Achim Knorr, Frank Spilker and Frank Werner again at the Easter fire on a local farm.

Caroline Kirberg
DE I 2016 I 22 minutes
Freiheit Freiheit Wirklichkeit

In search of the reality of the lives of independent musicians in digital times, the film and art collective “relativ kollektiv” accompanied the protagonists of the label and network “Analogsoul” in Leipzig, Berlin, Erfurt and Jena. They followed the artists for more than a year and visited them in their living environments: in rehearsal rooms, at field recordings, at concerts, but also at their bread-winning jobs.

André Klar / Benjamin Büttner
DE I 2016 I 37 minutes
Girl Power

Sany is a graffiti artist from Prague. She has been to 15 cities around the world over the last eight years, documenting her trip with a camera. She has devoted herself to the women of this subculture, especially, because it is strongly dominated by male actors.

Sany
CZ I 2015 I 80 minutes
Hot Sugar’s Cold World

Multilayered portrait of Nick Koenig aka Hot Sugar, soundscape artist, hip hop beats producer and DJ from New York with family roots in France and Poland. White middle-class hipsterism, slow growing up, paralyzing doubts – and ever-occuring bursts of energy and most revealing encounters in the search for new sounds and their transformation into music.

Adam Bhala Lough
USA I 2015 I 86 minutes
In the Audio-Visual Maze – A Guided Tour for Movie Conoisseurs

Live performance with finds from more remote regions of film history. By selecting and compiling the excerpts, VJ Safy Sniper assigns the leading role to their music. Safy Sniper is one of the pioneers of VJing. For over 30 years he has been working in places where images and sounds – often with each other, sometimes in competition – vie for the attention of the audience.

VJ Safy Sniper
DE I 2016 I 60 minutes
Inside The Mind Of Favela Funk

Two Dutch directors show life in one of the biggest slums of Rio de Janeiro and the music that dominates there, Favela Funk. It enlightens the viewer about the connections between joy of life, poverty, sexism and the dancefloor as a place where desires and social pacification are expressed in the middle of a big conflict …

Elise Roodenburg / Fleur Beemster
NL I 2016 I 76 minutes
Junun

In the over 600-year-old fortress of Mehrangarth (Rajasthan/India), local qawwali musicians, Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and RADIOHEAD’s Jonny Greenwood come together. The film is directed by Hollywood art house icon Paul Thomas Anderson (BOOGIE NIGHTS, MAGNOLIA, INHERENT VICE, among others) – celebrating diversity in community in a nutshell.

Paul Thomas Anderson
USA I 2015 I 56 minutes
Keine Atempause – Düsseldorf, Der Ratinger Hof Und Die Neue Musik

FEHLFARBEN, DEUTSCH AMERIKANISCHE FREUNDSCHAFT (DAF), DIE TOTEN HOSEN, S.Y.P.H., DER PLAN, ÖSTRO 430 and other bands influenced by punk were founded in the late 70s/early 80s in the vicinity of the pub Ratinger Hof, in close proximity to the famous Düsseldorf Art Academy. With this scene, and together with or in contrast to forerunners like KRAFTWERK, the musical DNA of the city was formed, the new, true Düsseldorf folklore!

Oliver Schwabe
DE I 2016 I 45 minutes
Lo Sound Desert – Two Chapters On Rock Music

History lessons by a persistent fan with a sense for the visually and dramaturgically effective narrative: the emergence and development of Stoner Rock (QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, KYUSS and others) from the spirit of Californian desert dwellers, at least those in Coachella Valley, who wanted to counter the heat and wealthy monotony of the American way of life with something different, something of their own.

Jörg Steineck
DE I 2015 I 97 minutes
Mali Blues

Four very different musicians from Mali fight for a tolerant Islam and for understanding and reconciliation in their own country. With Fatoumata Diawara, Amy Sackho, Bassekou Kouyaté, Ahmed Ag Kaedi and Master Soumy.

Lutz Gregor
DE I 2015 I 90 minutes
Melody Of Noise

The film accompanies several musicians from Switzerland, who have devoted themselves with passion to new, unknown, never-heard sounds. They build new instruments, work with everyday noises and transform noise into sound – a voyage of discovery into the realm of the hearing eyes and seeing ears. With Bruno Spoerri, Julian Sartorius, Stefan Heuss, Bubble Beatz, Peter Roth, Andres Bosshard, Saadet Türköz, Big Zis.

Gitta Gsell
CH I 2015 I 86 minutes
Out And Bad: London’s LGBT Dancehall Scene

Description of the lively scene of queer Jamaicans in London, who don’t let their enjoyment of dancehall be spoiled by its notorious homophobia.

Daisy-May Hudson / Kartel Brown
UK I 2015 I 39 minutes
Robert And The Never Ending Tour

Robert Fischer often attends Bob Dylan’s concerts, sometimes five in a row, and sometimes he follows the legend despite his fear of travelling across Europe. Even Dylan himself, whose native name is also Robert, has been on tour permanently since the mid 80s. Every third day he plays a concert somewhere in the world. A film about collecting, being a fan and the variation in repetition.

Gerald Zahn
AT I 2015 I 56 minutes
The Redemption Of The Devil

Portrait of Jesse “The Devil” Hughes, front man of the EAGLES OF DEATH METAL. The film is a result of a year of film work, while “Zipper Down”, the current album of the EODM, was completed. In addition, Jesse is ordained a Catholic priest, his relationship with former porn star Tuesday Cross intensifies – and his enthusiasm for conservative politics grows. At the same time he is dealing with his own father and fights for custody of his only child.

Alex Hoffmann
USA I 2015 I 82 minutes
Voice – Sculpting The Sound With Majas S. K. Ratkje

This is the first documentary film about Norway’s most famous contemporary composer, experimental musician and sound artist Maja S. K. Ratkje. It accompanies Ratkje throughout the seasons and across Europe, showing the diversity of her work. Performances, sound recordings and private moments are condensed into a complex portrait of an artist caught between career and family, whose energy and joy of creation are transferred to the audience.

Ingo Biermann
DE I 2015 I 93 minutes
Yallah! Underground

The film follows some of the most influential and progressive artists of today’s Arab underground culture from 2009 to 2013 (before, during and after the Arab Spring) and documents their work, hopes and fears in a time of great change within the Arab world.

Farid Eslam
CZ I 2015 I 85 minutes
Young & Gay: Jamaica’s Gully Queens

Description of the extremely hard conditions for gay and lesbian people in Jamaica.

Adri Murguia
USA I 2015 I 25 minutes