Movie: Songs of War: Music as a Weapon

Top 10 Billed Cast

Christopher Cerf
Christopher Cerf

Presenter

Thomas Keenan
Thomas Keenan

Human Rights Project, Bard College, New York

Chris Arendt
Chris Arendt

Former Guard, Guantanamo Bay

Herb Friedman
Herb Friedman

Psychological Operations Expert, US Army

Mike Ritz
Mike Ritz

Former Interrogator, US Army

Nathalie Gosselin
Nathalie Gosselin

Music Psychologist, Université de Montréal

Moazzam Begg
Moazzam Begg

Former Detainee, Guantanamo Bay And Bagram

Morag Josephine Grant
Morag Josephine Grant

Musicologist, University Of Göttingen

Mike Luce
Mike Luce

Drowning Pool

C.J. Pierce
C.J. Pierce

Drowning Pool

  • HomePage

  • Overview

    Music elates, touches the soul and bypasses reason. Music is magic. But precisely this magic can turn it into an insidious weapon for music and violence belong together. The brutal power of African war dances, the ferocity of Maori Hakas, the earth-shattering roar of US sound guns blasting Metallica at Taliban hideouts the principle is always the same: Aggressive sounds demoralise the enemy and whip the allies into a frenzy. In Songs of War, director Tristan Chytroschek explores the extraordinary harmony between music and violence. Sesame Street composer, Christopher Cerf, always wanted his music to be fun and entertaining. But then he learned that his songs had been used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. He is stunned by this abuse of his work and wants to find out how this could happen.

  • Release Date

    2010-02-25

  • Average

    7.5

  • Rating:

    3.8 starts
  • Tagline

    Music is a Weapon

  • Genres

  • Languages:

    English
  • Keywords

Recommendations Movies

Voyage of the Nautilus
55%

Voyage of the Nautilus(en)

2006-02-25

A photographic journey compiled from journals, archival footage and photographs of an Australian military photographer, Sir Hubert Wilkins in 1931 as he went from New York to the North Pole in an old WWI submarine to explore the Arctic Ocean. Included on dvd are a brief history of the submarine and photographic gallery of Wilkins.

Mais qui a re-tué Pamela Rose ?
57%

Mais qui a re-tué Pamela Rose ?(fr)

2012-12-05

French filmmaker Eric Lartigau directs the anarchic buddy comedy Bullit and Riper, originally released as Mais qui a tue Pamela Rose? French comedic television stars Kad Merad and Olivier Barroux are both the protagonists and the screenwriters. As a parody of Hollywood cop films, the story is set somewhere in the American Midwest as fabricated by the French. After losing his regular partner, FBI agent Richard Bullit (Merad) gets assigned to the book-learned cop Riper (Barroux) to investigate the death of a stripper. American movie stereotypes abound, such as shock jock Phil Canon (Gérard Darmon) and sheriff Steve Marley (Jean-Paul Rouve).

Monkey Man
69%

Monkey Man(en)

2024-04-03

Kid is an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.

Lonely Planet
61%

Lonely Planet(en)

2024-10-10

At an idyllic writers retreat in Morocco, a newly single novelist finds an unexpected connection with a younger man who's reevaluating his life choices.

Star!
69%

Star!(en)

1968-07-18

Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.

BTS World Tour: Love Yourself - Japan Edition
92%

BTS World Tour: Love Yourself - Japan Edition(ko)

2019-10-09

BTS perform their Japan concert at Tokyo Dome and Fukuoka Yahuoku Dome during their Love Yourself World Tour.

The Little Prince(ss)
71%

The Little Prince(ss)(en)

2021-05-28

When Gabriel, a 7-year-old Chinese kid who loves ballet, becomes friends with Rob, another Chinese kid from school, Rob’s dad gets suspicious about Gabriel's feminine behavior and decides to intervene.

Restore Point
58%

Restore Point(cs)

2023-09-21

It’s 2041 and the gaps in social and economic inequality have left the world on the brink. A breakthrough in science has given humanity the ability to bring victims of a violent crime back to life by backing up their brain every 2 days. This allows an ambitious, young detective the opportunity to solve a case of a murdered couple when the restoration team is able to bring one of them back.

Dune
74%

Dune(hu)

2020-06-15

Sounds as witnesses. They blurr into memories, half-dreams, it is undecided if they are real or not. A fluctuation between imagination and reality.

The Peasants
76%

The Peasants(pl)

2023-10-13

Peasant girl Jagna is forced to marry the much older, wealthy farmer Boryna, despite her love for his son Antek. With time, Jagna becomes the object of envy and disdain with the villagers and she must fight to preserve her independence.

Carry On Henry
61%

Carry On Henry(en)

1971-06-03

Henry VIII has just married Marie of Normandy, and is eager to consummate their marriage. Unfortunately for Henry, she is always eating garlic, and refuses to stop. Deciding to get rid of her in his usual manner, Henry has to find some way of doing it without provoking war with Marie's cousin, the King of France. Perhaps if she had an affair...

Kamen Rider SD: Strange?! Kumo Otoko
66%

Kamen Rider SD: Strange?! Kumo Otoko(ja)

1993-01-24

"Kamen Rider SD: Strange!? Kumo Otoko" is an animated OVA based on the gag manga Kamen Rider SD: Hurricane Legend. This cute and comedic short movie features chibi versions of the Showa Era Kamen Riders, as they team up against the evil GranShocker organization, while Kamen Rider Black RX tries to confess his love to female sports instructor Michiru.

Rattlesnake
52%

Rattlesnake(en)

2019-10-25

After a mysterious woman saves her daughter from a deadly snakebite, a single mother must repay the debt by killing a stranger before sundown.

Boss Level
69%

Boss Level(en)

2021-02-19

A former special forces agent is trapped in a time loop and relives his death over and over again. To escape the terrible situation, he must track down those responsible and stop them.

Tommy Tiernan: OK Baby
82%

Tommy Tiernan: OK Baby(en)

2007-11-17

Irelands Number 1 comedian Tommy Tiernan’s live stand up show Ok Baby filmed at this years (2007) Bud Light Comedy Revue at the Iveagh Gardens, Dublin with extra bonus material This performance was filmed in July 2007. In typical Tommy Tiernan style it’s not for the faint hearted or ‘easily offended’ – wicked, wild and ferociously funny, nothing is sacred. Chapters: Opposite of Mass Farmer Time Touch Me Outdoor Lover Man Dark Matter Hot Rain No God….T-Rex

Trust
64%

Trust(it)

2024-04-24

Pietro is a revered teacher, Teresa his brilliant and precocious student. Their affair is both illicit and tempestuous. After one fight, Teresa suggests that each tell the other a secret, one so shameful or shocking that were it to be made public, it would destroy that person’s life. Time passes, Pietro’s stature as a writer grows and his family settles into the comfort of a bourgeois life. But he is haunted by the possibility that Teresa may one day reappear and tear apart his world with the secret she knows.

Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween
66%

Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween(ja)

2022-04-15

Shibuya, Tokyo, is bustling with the Halloween season. A wedding is being held at Shibuya Hikarie, where Detective Miwako Sato of the Metropolitan Police Department is dressed in a wedding dress. While Conan and the other invited guests are watching, an assailant suddenly bursts in, and Detective Wataru Takagi, who was trying to protect Sato, is injured. Takagi survived and the situation was settled, but in Sato's eyes, the image of the grim reaper that she had seen when Detective Matsuda, the man she had been in love with, had been killed in a series of bombings three years ago, overlapped with Takagi's.

Nanny
53%

Nanny(en)

2022-11-23

Aisha, a Senegalese immigrant who takes a job as a nanny for a wealthy white family in New York City, finds herself consumed by unsettling visions and a growing rage.

Gabriel's Rapture: Part II
82%

Gabriel's Rapture: Part II(en)

2022-03-24

In the fifth installment of the Gabriel's Inferno series, Gabriel and Julia’s happiness is threatened by a conspiring student and academic politics. When Gabriel is confronted by the university administration, will he succumb to Dante's fate? Or will he fight to keep Julia, his Beatrice, forever?

Naruto OVA 9: Chunin Exam on Fire! and Naruto vs. Konohamaru!
73%

Naruto OVA 9: Chunin Exam on Fire! and Naruto vs. Konohamaru!(ja)

2011-07-30

Naruto faces off against his old pupil Konohamaru in a tournament during the chuunin entrance exams.

Similar Movies

Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stones
100%

Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stones(en)

2008-01-01

For over four decades the Rolling Stones have been on top. Arrests, drugs, fall-outs, death and relationships have stood center stage with eight consecutive number one albums in the US and sold out live shows.

To Be Frank: Sinatra at 100
70%

To Be Frank: Sinatra at 100(en)

2015-12-12

The life of Frank Sinatra, as an actor and singer and the steps along the way that led him to become such an icon.

Play Your Gender
50%

Play Your Gender(en)

2017-07-09

Juno Award-winning musician Kinnie Starr is on a quest to find out why only 5% of music producers are women even though many of the most bankable pop stars are female. What does it take for a woman to make it in music?

Olly Murs: Never Been Better - Live at the O2
70%

Olly Murs: Never Been Better - Live at the O2(en)

2015-05-07

Be prepared for Olly Murs Live At The O2. Recorded May 7th at London's O2 Arena, this live film is one of 4 sold out shows at the venue and it features a duet with Robbie Williams on Olly's classic hit 'Troublemaker.'

We Are Many
67%

We Are Many(en)

2014-06-08

The story of the biggest demonstration in human history, which took place on 15th February 2003, against the impending war on Iraq.

Neil Young: Solo Trans
60%

Neil Young: Solo Trans(en)

1984-01-01

Solo Trans is a concert film by Neil Young, released in 1984. It was recorded at the Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio on September 18, 1983 during Young's Solo Trans tour.

Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority
75%

Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority(en)

2006-03-25

A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.

U2: Rattle and Hum
72%

U2: Rattle and Hum(en)

1988-11-03

A concert movie on an unprecedented scale, Rattle And Hum captures U2 - on and off the stage - during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolour stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows, this is U2 at their best. Follow the group across America, exploring new influences, playing with the legendary B.B. King from Dublin to Graceland.

I Am Battle Comic
90%

I Am Battle Comic(en)

2017-03-23

A comedy documentary about performing stand-up comedy for U.S. Troops stationed in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq. Heartfelt interviews with top professional comedians are woven in with filmmaker Jordan Brady's first-hand experience going to the Middle East. While traveling (Spring 2016) brutal terrorist attacks in Brussels, Turkey and Iraq remind us of the dangers in thew world, and underscore the mission to provide laughter for the men and women serving the military.

The Dark Figure
90%

The Dark Figure(es)

2018-03-01

Rammstein: Völkerball
83%

Rammstein: Völkerball(de)

2006-11-13

Völkerball shows concert-performances by the band in England, France, Japan and Russia. The Special Edition is extended by a second DVD, which contains the documentaries "Anaconda in the net" by Mathilde Bonnefoy and the "Making of the album Reise, Reise" by Rammstein guitarist Paul Landers. The limited edition was released as a large black and white photo-book with photos by Frederic Batier.

The Latino List
70%

The Latino List(en)

2011-09-29

Documentary film interviews leading Latinos on race, identity, and achievement.

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band
68%

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band(en)

2020-02-21

A confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robbie Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music, The Band.

The Last Waltz
76%

The Last Waltz(en)

1978-04-26

Martin Scorsese's documentary intertwines footage from "The Band's" incredible farewell tour with probing backstage interviews and featured performances by Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and other rock legends.

Phil Collins: A Life Less Ordinary
0%

Phil Collins: A Life Less Ordinary(en)

2002-11-04

A detailed profile of the life and career of musician Phil Collins.

Conscience and the Constitution
90%

Conscience and the Constitution(en)

Americans refused to be drafted from the concentration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Ready to fight, but not before their rights as U.S. citizens were restored and families released.

Roger Waters: Us + Them
78%

Roger Waters: Us + Them(en)

2019-10-02

Filmed in Amsterdam on the European leg of his 2017 – 2018 Us + Them tour which saw Waters perform to over two million people worldwide, the film features songs from his legendary Pink Floyd albums (The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Animals, Wish You Were Here) and from his last album, Is This The Life We Really Want?

Slave to the Grind
74%

Slave to the Grind(en)

2018-04-21

Grindcore is the worlds fastest most aggressively intense music. Fusing the anarchistic and leftist attitudes of the UK Punk scene with the speed and drunken aggression of American Death Metal, Grindcore continues to challenge and offend most listeners.

Kanye West: College Dropout [Video Anthology]
10%

Kanye West: College Dropout [Video Anthology](en)

2005-03-22

A collection of music videos and behind the scenes footage released to promote Kanye West's upcoming debut album, College Dropout. The compilation features the videos to the previously unreleased "Two Words", "Slow Jamz", "Through the Wire", "All Falls Down", the three versions of "Jesus Walks", and "The New Workout Plan", all previously unseen before its release.