Projects in genres: Music

Synopsis

Country music is changing - or maybe it’s returning to its roots. This musical documentary traces the troubled history and inclusive future of the genre with performances from today’s most talented iconoclasts, including Blanco Brown, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, and BRELAND.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2024 - World premiere

Synopsis

A small group of friends enjoy a ride around a mysterious hamlet.

Synopsis

As the Palestinian identity continues to be threatened with erasure, Palestinians turn to their folk dance, the dabke, to assert their existence. Ultimately, they dance because they love life, and insist on living it.
Official Selection Leuven International Short Film Festival 2024

Synopsis

An experimental short: a dark comedy satire combined with a music video: In 2044, humanity subsists on ‘Manna-Moolah’ extracted from an asteroid which is now hurtling towards Earth. With hours before impact, Victor tries to get his mentor, Professor Pokus onboard a ship and leave Earth before it’s too late.

Synopsis

Under two feet of peaty soil in Orkney, lies the only recording of Scottish composer Erland Cooper’s unheard album. In an entirely unique attempt to collaborate with the natural world, it would be an experiment on patience, art and value. Will the tape emerge silent, and does it matter if it does?
RECOMPOSING EARTH takes you into the mind of an artist and the magic of the Orkney Islands that inspire him, with a story that reminds of music's importance as an expression of the human condition. With interviews including Paul Weller, producer Marta Salogni and Sir Ian Rankin.

Synopsis

Two lonely strangers meet across a crowded room. It just takes one held look, one breathless moment, to bring them completely alive... literally.

Synopsis

2024 marks the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s iconic Eurovision victory, a milestone that calls for a celebratory cinematic tribute fitting for the ultimate pop band. ‘ABBA: Against the Odds’ unveils the epic journey of ABBA’s rise to global fame. Starting with the moment they won Eurovision, it tells the story of how they overcame critical backlash, societal attitudes and marital break-up to deliver their ground-breaking music and prove themselves as a live act. Under the direction of the award-winning James Rogan, known for his impactful documentary storytelling, the film weaves a rich narrative using a treasure trove of rare archive footage, bringing to life the love, struggle, and fame behind the unforgettable hits. While ABBA’s music has touched millions, ‘ABBA: Against the Odds’ presents their saga in a manner as compelling and personal as never before.
Official selection CPH:DOX Film Festival 2024 Special Premieres Sound & Vision - World Premiere

Synopsis

A cinematic and interactive journey through our shifting sense of reality, challenging our sense of the here and now, and blending the boundary between a music video and video game with a unique movement mechanic that rewards the curious, and AI driven randomisation... told from the future, looking back at how technology has impacted our experience of reality and the journey of humankind, this piece explores the way our sense of reality is in constant flux.
This is the standalone version of a live music VR experience created for the Glasgow Disability Alliance.
Official Selection SXSW Film Festival 2020 - XR Experience Competition - World premiere

Synopsis

A thought-provoking short film that artistically examines the negative impact of drinking and smoking.
This film is audio described using the multi-award winning Rationale Method of Audio Description.

Synopsis

June 1967, Lake Geneva Switzerland. A ball of energy named Claude Knobs embarks on one of the most exciting musical adventures of our time, one that shaped the history of live music forever. Over 50 years later the story of the Montreux Jazz Festival and its visionary creator is told in this ground breaking documentary by those who experienced it. Using unseen archive material and brand new interviews the film takes the viewer back in time to hear the trumpet of Miles Davis, the piano of Nina Simone and the guitar of BB King echo through 5 decades of candid recollections by dozens of the festival’s star performers and industry insiders. Never before has a documentary of this magnitude been made on the history of the Montreux Jazz Festival, offering a breath- taking panorama of half a century of music history and performances from some of the 20th century’s most important and greatest musical icons.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2024 - World premiere

Synopsis

When a pioneering band stays true to their roots and follows their own path, the outcome is ‘bigger than words and wider than pictures’.
Over 25 years and 10 studio albums—using brute sonic force mixed with subtlety and grace—Mogwai have defined their own musical genre.
Described as “The blueprint for what an independent group should be” (John Doran, The British Masters), Mogwai built a cult following by staying true to their sound and true to their roots.
The film takes us on a journey from their very beginnings, in the mid 1990s, to the band writing and rehearsing their tenth studio album in their hometown of Glasgow, Scotland in 2020 - a record made during lockdown. While at first seemingly impossible to make, they ultimately made history with it.
Official selection SXSW Film Festival 2024 - 24 Beats Per Second - World premiere

Synopsis

Acclaimed filmmaker Chris Smith (Wham!, Fyre, 100 Foot Wave, and Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond) captures the gloriously radical spirit that is DEVO – a rare band founded by a philosophy; a Dada experiment of high art meets low, hellbent on infiltrating American popular culture. Through never-before-seen archival and interviews with Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh, and Jerry Casale, Devo relishes in the highs, lows, surreal moments and incredible performances of a 50-year career, embracing the spectacle of the band from their lo-fi beginnings to pioneers of the music video in the early days of MTV’s cultural dominance.
Band members are open with their memories and archives, charting their origins as Kent State University arts students shaped by the activism of the late 1960s. Following the 1970 massacre on their campus, the band’s concept of cultural “De-Evolution” turned from satirical humor to urgent social commentary, and what began as subversive counterprogramming to KSU’s 1973 arts festival would go on to warn of, comment on, and reflect back the absurdism of the late 20th century. Finding mainstream success at the height of 1980s consumerism, Devo soundtracked the De-Evolution they’d long predicted – and influenced a 21st century they’d have never believed.
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2024 - Premieres - World premiere