Must-See Music Documentaries

New Zealand Musician — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 14:00:00 GMT

The first NZ documentary festival runs 15-28 Sept at the Academy Cinema in Auckland, and 29 Sept – 5 Oct at the Paramount Cinema in Wellington. This festival is the first in Australasia to focus exclusively on documentaries, and brings you over 230 of them to choose from!

For music lovers, there are some must-see films, including:

'Sing Until the Slaughter You', about SerbiansJovan and Valdan who formed a reggae band called Del Arno. When the former federation of Yugoslavia began to collapse, the band began to rise. Ever since and despite the wars and dictatorship, they carry on singing about their battle for a better life. From Serbia to Slovenia their concerts are the living memory of their country’s fall. Years of war and misery anchored in their souls rise to the surface as a musical breath of wind whose lyrics in Serbian carry the seed of a new vision of the Balkans.
'Electric Purgatory' is a documentary that examines the struggles of black American rock musicians and the industry's ambivalence towards them. DirectorGayle spent the better part of a year travelling around the United States interviewing many of Black Rock's elite including Fishbone, Vernon Reid, Adam Falcon, Jimi Hazel and Cody Chesnutt. Distinguished journalists such as Flip Barnes, Darrell McNeil,Charlie Braxton, andGreg Tate, share their opinions and insight on the dilemma facing these artists. The film explores the origins of the Black Rock Coalition and its relevance in the music industry. It also takes a look at the stigma Black Rock musicians face in the Black community and more importantly how to bring the Black audiences back into the fold.

'The Freedom Flat' - They left behind a mysterious legacy, a bright pink door inscribed with the words, "Pink Flat – the Door," meticulously copied from Pink Floyd’s 'The Wall' album cover. Seventeen years later, the door has become a Dunedin landmark, restored by an art restorer and protected under the flat’s lease agreement. 'The Freedom Flat' documentary journeys back to 1988 to tell the story behind the pink door. In the words of the six original flatmates –Swani, Jac,Wallace, Barry, Marc and Kelvin – we relive the year that New Zealand’s first conceptual flat rose and fell in a vortex of astral travel, skinhead violence and Pink Floyd guitar solos. We find out what sort of grown-ups the flatmates became, and whether their year in the Freedom Flat meant anything to them.

There are lots of other documentaries you might enjoy, with subjects as diverse as the relationship between Hemingway and his boat captain, Gregorio Fuentes in a charming Cuban short story ('The Old Man and Hemingway'), and the Academy Award nominated 'Twist of Faith', which is the first documentary to delve into the wrenching psychological journey of a clergy sex abuse victim who determines to take on the church and set things right.

Electric Purgatory - Articles

Must-See Music Documentaries