WORLD PREMIERE – In 1980, Bruce Springsteen released his pivotal double album “The River.” In “The Ties That Bind,” Grammy and Emmy winning director Thom Zimny focuses on the making of the album. In an intimate interview, Springsteen reflects on the tumultuous, extended period of writing and recording. The film transitions between Springsteen telling the […]
US PREMIERE Earlier this year, iconic Britpop band Blur surprised their legion of fans with the release of a new album, The Magic Whip, their first as a foursome in 16 years. Blur: New World Towers goes behind the scenes to reveal how an unexpected break in Hong Kong during their 2013 reunion tour inspired the chart-topping […]
WORLD PREMIERE Peelander-Z isn’t your ordinary band. Once audiences see their outrageous onstage antics – human bowling, anyone? – and distinctive color-coded costumes, they might just start to believe the Japanese art-punk band’s claims of coming from another planet. After fifteen years of playing in NYC and touring around the country, Peelander Red decides to […]
NYC PREMIERE Despite a couple of minor hits, soul singer Syl Johnson retired from the music industry in the 1980s, never quite having achieved the success he longed for. But with the dawn of hip hop came the unexpected, widespread embrace of his 1967 song “Different Strokes” – sampled by artists as diverse as Run-DMC, […]
NYC PREMIERE In their 40-year career, the members of the pioneering sound and video collective known as The Residents have insisted on absolute anonymity, performing in distinctive giant eyeball masks and natty suits, and never revealing their true identities. In Don Hardy’s entertaining, accessible film, longtime collaborators, ardent supporters like The Simpsons’ Matt Groening, magician […]
NYC PREMIERE This timely look at US-Cuba relations focuses on the younger Cubans and Cuban Americans who are seeking to bridge the conflicts of their parents’ generation. Covering a span of ten years, the film looks at the buildup to and aftermath of the 2009 Peace Without Borders concert in Havana that assembled some of […]
Hustlers Convention is, in the words of The Hollywood Reporter, a hip-hop history lesson that feels at times like a rap cousin of Searching for Sugar Man. Director Mike Todd (Joe Frazier: When the Smoke Clears) goes in search of the artist behind the influential 1973 album Hustlers Convention. Interviews include George Clinton, Fab 5 […]
NYC PREMIERE Young love—and heartbreak—is captured through a tailor-made soundtrack in Elvira Lind’s sweetly observed naturalistic portrait. 18-year-old hopeless romantic Ryan writes songs about his 16-year-old girlfriend Alexis as the couple navigates a long-distance relationship between Long Island and San Francisco. But in contrast to his supportive family, Alexis’s father doesn’t approve of their relationship […]
WORLD PREMIERE As a teenager in the 1980s, Scott Crawford began a fanzine documenting the explosion of a distinctive brand of hardcore punk music in Washington, DC, exemplified by bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains and Fugazi. Drawing from his own immersion in that world, and featuring a who’s who of musicians, label owners, photographers […]
NYC PREMIERE In Jingle Bell Rocks!, director Mitchell Kezin delves into the minds of some of the world’s most legendary Christmas music fanatics and hits the road to hang with his holiday heroes – including hip hop legend Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons of RUN-D.M.C., The Flaming Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne, filmmaker John Waters, bebopper Bob […]