Sounds of the West - Bristol Jungle Documentary

Never Stop: A Music That Resists(en)

Featuring the pioneers of techno music Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Carl Craig, and Jeff Mills, Never Stop takes us into the fascinating universe of techno labels in Detroit. This film highlights the deep roots of the creation, more than thirty years ago, by each of the African-American pioneers of techno music, of their own record labels.

COOCUYO(es)

COOCUYO. To quote a Cuban comedian: “where does the Cocuyo hide its battery?”, just thanks to its peculiarity, Desiderio uses this cockroach as a perfect metaphor to describe his protagonists: with their green lights during the night and virtually impossible to find during the day. In his movie, he tries to find the battery of the Cocuyo living and looking for the “day-time” part, creating a path made by portraits and with an anti-narrative style. These scenes are far away from the Electronic music, or partly at least; all in a very natural context and without a defined screenplay. http://www.coocuyo.com/

Eno(en)

Visionary musician and artist Brian Eno - known for producing David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, among many others; pioneering the genre of ambient music; and releasing over 40 solo and collaboration albums - reveals his creative processes in this groundbreaking generative documentary: a film that's different every time it's shown.

A Life in Waves(en)

Explores the life and innovations of composer and electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani.

The Sound Is Innocent(en)

As if directing a science-fiction film, Johana Ožvold dissects the story of electronic music. From the pioneer sound engineers working behind the Iron Curtain, through the French avant-garde composers, up to the post-modern creators of digital sonic artefacts, the first-time filmmaker summons an abstract landscape that is haunting and yet achingly beautiful. A voice appears from old television screens forgotten in the maze of some futuristic archive where past and future seem to coexist in a complex and multi-layered way.

Reformat the Planet(en)

'Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet' is a feature length documentary which delves into the movement known as ChipTunes, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using old video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results. Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, 'Reformat the Planet' maps out the genesis of the first annual Blip Festival, a four day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game consoles. With floor-stomping rhythms and fist-waving melodies, trailblazers of the ChipTune idiom descend upon Manhattan to pen a new chapter in the history of electronic music.

Locked Off(en)

Rave Culture is one of Britain’s great cultural exports, but after its first wave in the late eighties and early nineties, it was soon forced into the underground by stringent new laws and superclubs. But forward 25 years into in the midst of a nationwide purge on the nation’s nightlife, where nearly half of all British clubs have shut down in the last decade, and a new kind of scene has emerged. Clive Martin investigates this 21st century version of Rave, where young people break into disused spaces with the help of bolt-cutters and complicated squatting laws, to suck on balloons and go hard into the early morning. But with the police using increasingly extreme tactics to clamp down on these parties, and more than one fatality causing nationwide media panic, can the scene survive?

And The Heads Keep On Movin(it)

Keyboard Fantasies(en)

As a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released Keyboard Fantasies in Huntsville, Ontario back in 1986. Recorded in an Atari-powered home-studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folk-electronica hybrid, a sound realized far before its time. Three decades on, the musician – now Glenn Copeland – began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered.

Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution(en)

Kraftwerk's vision of a keyboard-driven world of clicking metronomic rhythms and digitised sound bites may have been the stuff of avant fantasy in the 1970s (the decade that saw the band's first groundbreaking albums), but it is a reality in the new millennium. Their visionary style is explored in KRAFTWERK AND THE ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION, a study of the group, their career and their emergence as the most influential electronic band in the world.

Deconstructing Dad: The Music, Machines and Mystery of Raymond Scott(en)

His filmmaker son probes the professional and private lives of his remote but fascinating father: bandleader, composer, inventor, and electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott.

Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey(en)

After escaping Russia's communist revolution, Léon Theremin travels to New York, where he pioneers the field of electronic music with his synthesizer. But at the height of his popularity, Soviet agents kidnap and force him to develop spy technology.

Lindsey Stirling: Brave Enough(en)

Beginning on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, “Brave Enough,” documents violinist Lindsey Stirling over the past year as she comes to terms with the most challenging & traumatic events of her life. Through her art, she seeks to share a message of hope and courage and yet she must ask herself the question, “Am I Brave Enough?” Capturing her personal obstacles and breakthrough moments during the “Brave Enough,” tour, the film presents an intimate look at this one-of- a-kind artist and her spectacular live performances inspired by real-life heartbreak, joy, and love.

The Birth of Punjabi Garage(en)

Yung Singh and Ministry of Sound present: The Birth of Punjabi Garage The documentary has a wealth of unseen archive footage showing exactly how it was in the garages and studios of the young Bradford and Manchester lads from the beginning, to the events, weddings and festivals that marked their success. The documentary is bookended by Yung Singh and his infamous and iconic Boiler Room, giving credit to the elders who paved the way for the continuation of South Asian presence in British dance culture. This documentary was produced in tandem with Yung Singh and is the first documentary to explore the genre. Documentaries have covered Bhangra, the 80s Daytimers and the Asian Underground but the South Asian diaspora’s involvement in the early 2000s Garage scene has never been covered and we are therefore proud to bring this to you!

Avicii - My Last Show(sv)

On Aug. 28, 2016, Tim Bergling, better known as Avicii, graced the stage of the Ushuaïa nightclub in Ibiza for what would be his final performance.

From the Black Earth(en)

From the Black Earth is a collaboration between Bristol based company Cables and Cameras, and a local farmer Humphrey Lloyd. Employing both lucid speakers and poetic camera work, the film poses stark questions such as; why does food poverty exist in a nation of plenty, and why are people of colour so under represented not only in our countryside and farms, but in the environmental movement more broadly? By giving a platform to people of colour who are connecting with nature and working the land, this short documentary starts to unpick these questions...

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye(en)

An intimate, affecting portrait of the life and work of ground-breaking performance artist and music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and his wife and collaborator, Lady Jaye, centered around the daring sexual transformations the pair underwent for their 'Pandrogyne' project.

NARC. Mini-Doc – Outside The Mainstream: The North East’s Alternative Scene(en)

The final episode in our Mini-Docs series comes from musician and writer Jake Anderson, who explores the niche music genres which find an increasing audience in the North East. On a mission to discover outside-the-mainstream sounds and the driving forces behind their creation, Jake chats with musicians Me Lost Me, SQUARMS and Mariam Rezaei, along with some of the major players keeping these sonically-engaging sound makers doing what they’re doing, including Simeon Soden from Kaneda Records and Lee Etherington of TUSK. This mini-documentary features reflections on some of the most unique acts in the North East, what genre boundaries actually mean and artists’ hopes for the future of the North East’s alternative scene. This is an Art Mouse film for NARC. TV, written and directed by Jake Anderson.

Sisters with Transistors(en)

Think of early electronic music and you’ll likely see men pushing buttons, knobs, and boundaries. While electronic music is often perceived as a boys' club, the truth is that from the very beginning women have been integral in inventing the devices, techniques and tropes that would define the shape of sound for years to come.

Forsenses - A Fascinating Journey into Nature & Sound(en)

Forsenes A symphony for eyes and ears: Forsenses it the first installment of the Blu-ray Disc series blu::elements that brings to life the full optical and acoustic potential of HD Definition. This ambitious project combined fascinating HD-shoots of the elements - water, earth, air and fire - with a specially composed 3D surround chill-out soundtrack, to make this an audiovisual symphony for the senses.