AKOUNAK: RAIN THE COLOR OF BLUE WITH A LITTLE RED IN IT (Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai)
Christopher Kirkley
Niger, 2015
75 minutes, Color
The title of director Christopher Kirkley’s musical drama is a sly reference to Purple Rain, and indeed star Mdou Moctar does his best to channel the enigmatic Prince. Moctar arrives in town on a purple motorcycle, and his only luggage is an electric guitar. Like another famous musician, Jimi Hendrix, Moctar plays guitar left-handed, which means that when his disapproving father burns his instrument, he can’t just pick up any other six-string. But Moctar coaxes sounds out of his Stratocaster that its inventor Leo Fender probably never imagined. While romancing local fangirl Rhaicha (Rhaicha Ibrahim), Moctar runs afoul of rival musician Kader (Kader Tanoutanoute). In a city where reputations are made by how fast songs travel via cellphone, a battle of the bands is organized to prove who the real rock star is. Akounak’s many musical interludes will keep toes tapping long after the film is over.—Dave Nuttycombe
ARGENTINA (Zonda: folclore argentino)
Carlos Saura
Argentina, Spain, 2015
85 minutes, Color
With this, the latest in his series of sensuous explorations of Ibero-American culture, Spanish master Carlos Saura captures the songs, dances, and colors that make up Argentina’s gorgeous and unique traditional music. From the Pampas to the Andes and everywhere in between, Saura and his team seek out the particular sounds of each region and its performers, united as they so often are by a distinctive brand of nostalgia, an elegiac beauty, and a profound passion that offers a marked contrast to the stereotype of Argentine reserve. Artists such as Mercedes Sosa, Chaqueño Palavecino, Lucho González, Ballet Nuevo Arte Nativo de Koki, Pajarin Saavedra, Melania Pérez, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Jaime Torres, Soledad Pastorutti, Orquesta Popular Los Amigos Del Chango, Lito Vitale, and Pedro Aznar are immortalized on the big screen in Argentina, a journey through a musical landscape teeming with bold style and a vibrant heart.—Miami International Film Festival (In Spanish with English subtitles)
THE FORBIDDEN SHORE
Ron Chapman
Canada, 2016
96 minutes, Color
In Person: Director Ron Chapman
The amazing diversity of contemporary Cuban music is gorgeously explored in Ron Chapman’s third documentary feature. With this ambitious new film, Chapman captures the full gamut of what’s happening now in Cuba. We meet the most exciting artists and experience the distinct musical scenes they move in, from classic song and salsa to trova, nueva trova, reggaton, rock, jazz, metal, rap, electronic, classical, choral, pop, changu, danzón, rumba, yoruba, bolero, conga, timba, mambo, and more. The film’s wonderful soundtrack comprises music new and old; the sounds of modern iconoclasts and the immortal music of the old guard. This is a one-of-a-kind journey into the heart and soul of a sonic culture like no other, a place where music is cultivated and thrives through the enduring desire of its people to forge a sound that is all their own.—Miami International Film Festival (In Spanish with English subtitles)
FESTIVAL PREVIEW | CINE CUBANO | CIRCLE AWARD | FIRST FEATURE
JUSTICE MATTERS | THE LIGHTER SIDE |TRUST NO ONE
OUR LAST TANGO (Un tango más)
German Kral
Argentina, 2015
85 minutes, Color
María Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes are the most famous—and one could argue most fabulous—tango dancers of all time. That they have been dancing partners for half a century is astonishing. Equally amazing is that they are still light on their feet into their 80s. Director Kral’s stylish documentary tells their story with interviews and many musical interludes. Those sequences are performed by dancers portraying younger versions of Copes and Rego. Those younger dancers also gather occasionally to examine photos and discuss Copes’ and Rego’s lives and legends. While archive footage of the couple’s dances together shows a seemingly ecstatic pair, offstage life was rather dramatic. Copes says that when he met Rego, he’d “found his Stradivarius.” The fiery Rego says she’d do it all again, “except for being with Juan.” When the octogenarians take the stage one final time, one doubts her assessment.—Dave Nuttycombe (In Spanish with English subtitles)
PRESENTING PRINCESS SHAW
Ido Haar
Israel, 2015
80 minutes, Color
By day, Samantha Montgomery cares for the elderly in one of New Orleans’s toughest neighborhoods. By night, she writes and sings her own songs as Princess Shaw on her confessional YouTube channel. Raw and vulnerable, her voice is a diamond in the rough. Across the globe, Ophir Kutiel creates video mashups of amateur YouTube performers. Known as Kutiman, he is a composer, musician, and pioneering video artist. Two strangers, almost 7,000 miles apart, begin to build a song. The film unfolds as Kutiman pairs Princess Shaw’s emotional performances in a beautiful expression of generosity and compassion, revealing the bona fide star underneath and her fight to never give up on her dreams.—South by Southwest
ROARING ABYSS
Quino Piñero
Ethiopia, Spain, UK, 2015
86 minutes, Color
This musical road movie takes us across Ethiopia, a nation with a population of 90 million and 80 different languages. Roaring Abyss is full of recordings of all forms of incredible music—from wind orchestras from the time of Emperor Haile Selassie to the Azmari, the Ethiopian equivalent of European bards. We’re treated to traditional pieces that use scales very different from Western music and increasingly add a singer with a synthesizer or other Western instruments. The film documents music that has been passed on from generation to generation for centuries and that is played on traditional instruments such as the washint, masinko, krar, and begena. For two years, director Piñero travelled across Ethiopia, “the land where even the coffee beans sing,” according to an inhabitant of the former province of Kaffa. Like all Ethiopians, he is proud of the country’s traditional music, which must never be lost.—International Film Festival Rotterdam (In Amharic, Tigrigna, Oromifa, Nuer, Kaffigna, and Harari with English subtitles)
THE VIOLIN TEACHER
Sérgio Machado
Brazil, 2015
100 minutes, Color
The musical career of violinist Laerte, a former child prodigy, has not gone as planned. His once-in-a-lifetime audition with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra is a spectacular failure. With bills piling up, he cannot turn down an offer to teach a high school violin class in Sao Paulo’s notorious Heliopolis neighborhood. Reluctant and defensive, Laerte anticipates trouble in this tough environment and finds it. Unruly, untrained, and unable to read music, his students carry the weight of the favela on their young shoulders. Eventually, passion and purpose begin to emerge for teacher and students alike. With the program’s future resting on an upcoming concert and the pressures of gang violence and police brutality growing louder offstage, Laerte’s greatest performance may consist of bringing a glimmer of hope into his students’ lives and his own.—Palm Springs International Film Festival (In Portuguese with English subtitles)