Part music video and part documentary, Off to the Races is a new arrangement of the classic Erhu song, Horse Race. The film is a collaboration between the Calgary Chinese Orchestra, filmmaker Vicki Van Chau, and music producer Warren Tse. Through an open call process, the film features 72 participants from the global music community playing with the members of the Calgary Chinese Orchestra, in celebration of the Lunar New Year.
6.8A young orchestra violinist’s fear of mediocrity and drive for artistic success strain his marriage to a fellow musician. Told largely in flashback and shaped by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the film examines ambition, love, and loss in early Ingmar Bergman.
5.2A comic drama set on a Mediterranean island, where a motley collection of characters is seeking musical redemption.
A collection of music videos from the first 20 years of the bands career
6.5Although Gainsbourg and Birkin had appeared in a string of films since their magnetic collision in Pierre Grimblat’s Slogan, Melody was a bit of diversion from their collaborations since it’s a series of interwoven videos inspired by the Gainsbourgalbum. For '71 it’s a novel concept to bring visual life to an LP, but even more surprising are the short film’s amazing visuals that director Averty crafted using a wealth of video filters, overlays, camera movements and chroma key effects. Averty applies these in tandem with the increasing tone of Gainsbourg’s songs, which more or less chronicle an older man's affair with a young girl. Each song is comprised of steady, sometimes brooding poetic delivery, with refrains timed to the phrase repeats of each song, while Alan Parker’s buzzing guitar accompanies and wiggles around Gainsbourg’s resonant voice. The bass is fat and groovy, the drums easy but steady, and the periodic use of strings or rich vibrato makes this short a sultry little gem.
Cao Fei recorded her experiences within the online social platform Second Life. The result is a wistful, surreal vision of an alternative reality sprung from the pop culture fantasies and hyper-consumerism of contemporary urban China, while also trying to transcend its real-life limitations. It can be seen as an answer to the challenge posed by River Elegy: how to envision a new Chinese destiny founded on principles of individuality, creativity, discovery, and freedom. The film also reflects the contemporary condition of the virtual supplanting our experience of the real.
7.9A two disc amalgam of the final performances of 2001's Madison Square Gardens performances by one of the greatest bands in the world of some of the greatest music in the world. The atmosphere positively floods out of the screen to envelop you and the hairs on your neck will be standing on end before the first note has been struck. After watching this you'll believe that The Boss is incapable of putting a foot wrong. By the end, he's only just short of defying gravity.
10.0An abandoned homestead, twelve songs and five days to cut an album. A journey into how the power of music transforms our life.
7.3Chiaki is an aspiring conductor who faces the challenge of leading an orchestra which is made up of substitutes. Nodame gives her support to her beloved as she works hard towards achieving her dream to pass a promotion exam at their music conservatory. Will Chiaki be able to revive a broken down orchestra and launch his musical career? What will become of Nodame and Chiaki's relationship?
5.1A musician plagued by insomnia is pulled into an odyssey with a stranger who begins to unravel the very core of his existence.
7.8Internet songwriter Chow (Cherry Ngan) is gifted with an extraordinary retentive memory. She never forgets anything she has heard. One day, she was kidnapped by Yung (Ronald Cheng), a street punk, to a remote fish raft so desolate that an escape plan seems to be a mission impossible. In the hope to flee with the only ability she has, Chow offers to give a spiritual music therapy to the rather maniacal kidnapper. What happens next is beyond anyone’s imagination – the two who have nothing in common begin to form an intimate bond and connection through music. More than that, Chow finds immense inspirations on this “floating stage”, while discovering the incredible singing voice and vocal range in Yung – a seemingly hopeless criminal can also possess a voice as captivating as the sound of nature…
9.3A collection of concert performances by Johnny Cash from the 60s to the 90s.
7.0If you're looking for some no-nonsense hard rock riffage, Motörhead - Stage Fright is your destination. The power trio, celebrating their 30th Anniversary with the release of this concert video, have a lean, muscular musical attack that clearly influenced not only heavy metal (with its bludgeoning thunder) but also punk rock (with its no-frills minimalism). Filmed in Düsseldorf, Germany on 7 December 2004. Setlist: 01. Dr. Rock 02. Stay Clean 03. Shoot You In The Back 04. Love Like A Reptile 05. Killers 06. Metropolis 07. Over The Top 08. No Class 09. I Got Mine 10. In The Name Of Tragedy 11. Dancing On Your Grave 12. R.A.M.O.N.E.S. 13. Sacrifice 14. Just 'Cos You Got The Power 15. Going To Brazil 16. Killed By Death 17. Iron Fist 18. Whorehouse Blues 19. Ace Of Spades 20. Overkill
5.0The story revolves around Evaristo who¸ accompanied by his drum¸ dreams of becoming a great figure and imposing his music on the whole world. Evaristo composes cumbias and more cumbias on his ranch and then in jail¸ where adverse situations take him. Meanwhile his delusions begin to come true¸ and without knowing it¸ his name and rhythm become famous.
6.2In Search of Beethoven offers a comprehensive documentary about the life and works of the great composer. Over 65 performances by the world's finest musicians were recorded and 100 interviews conducted in the making of this beautifully crafted film. Eleven interviews are included in the Extras and Six complete movements.
6.2Singer and songwriter Hank Williams rises to fame in the 1940s, but alcohol abuse and infidelity take a toll on his career and marriage to fellow musician Audrey Mae Williams.
7.0Petar Peca Popović is one of the greatest, most famous, most authoritative and for sure, the best, connoisseur of Rock and Roll in the former Yugoslavia. He promoted Rock and Roll in those heroic times. We are going on a peculiar kind of trip with him, along an "emotional homeland", of ex-Yu, "searching for the lost times" and dear friends, the most significant representatives of this culture - rock'n'roll legends.
6.9A Pennsylvania band scores a hit in 1964 and rides the star-making machinery as long as it can, with lots of help from its manager. But behind the scenes, the group’s sudden fame tests their strength, their maturity and responsibility, and their ability to resist the temptations that money and notoriety always make possible.
6.0A film within a film, "Looking for Oum Kulthum" is the plight of an Iranian woman artist/filmmaker living in exile, as she embarks on capturing the life and art of the legendary female singer of the Arab world, Oum Kulthum. Through her difficult journey, not unlike her heroine's, she has to face the struggles, sacrifices and the price that a woman has to pay if she dares to cross the lines of a conservative male dominated society.
10.0A documentary about Goran Ivandic 'Ipe', the drummer of most popular Yugoslav rock band of all time, Sarajevo-based "Bijelo dugme" (White Button). Ivandic's fatal jump from the balcony of hotel Metropol in Belgrade in 1994 sparked much controversy around his fate.
7.8High school student Dai Miyamoto has his life is turned upside down the day he discovers jazz. Picking up a saxophone and leaving his sleepy hometown for the bustling nightclubs of Tokyo, Dai will find that the life of a professional musician isn’t for the faint of heart, as he must confront what it truly means to be great.
