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Summer Screen 2017

This year, the Summer Screen Programme brings a number of interesting film titles produced all around the world over the past twelve months. We selected six exceptional music movies from the rich new offer of world cinema.

Please join us on what we hope will be an enjoyable trip through films and music that will take us from Mexico to America, from the United Kingdom to North Korea and back, and from Japan to Germany.

CHAVELA
USA, Mexico, Spain, 2017, 90 min.
Director: Catherine Gund, Daresha Kyi
Cast: Chavela Vargas, Pedro Almodóvar, Elena Benarroch, Miguel Bosé, Alicia Elena Pérez Duarte y Noroña, Liliana Felipe, Patria Jiménez Flores, Laura García-Lorca, Martirio Gira, Mariana Gyalui, José Alfredo Jiménez Jr., Eugenia León, Tania Libertad, Diana Ortega, Tlany Ortega, Jesusa Rodríguez, Marcela Rodríguez, Betty-Carol Sellen

Singer Chavela Vargas gained a name for herself, first in Mexico and later worldwide, chiefly for her interpretation of traditional rancheras. These songs were mainly composed by men, and mostly speak of unfulfilled love for women, loneliness and world-weariness. Vargas performed them with her own unique feeling for rhythm and her distinctively rough yet vulnerable voice. Her masculine appearance and red poncho made her unmistakable. In Acapulco, a playground in the 1960s for the rich and famous in the world of politics and culture, she rubbed shoulders with many celebrities, turning the heads of Frida Kahlo and Ava Gardner with her charm and striking beauty. After a thirteen-year break from performing – a result of her addiction to alcohol – she was rediscovered in the 1990s and enjoyed a glorious comeback as the muse of artists and directors like Pedro Almodóvar. The unpublished material in this film, as well as the interviews with Vargas and her contemporaries, colleagues and partners, results in an affectionate portrait of a charismatic and exceptional artist – who was openly lesbian throughout her life and up to her death in 2012 at the age of 93.


IF I THINK OF GERMANY AT NIGHT
Germany, 2017, 105 min.
Director: Romuald Karmakar
Cast: Ricardo Villalobos, Sonja Moonear, Ata, Roman Flügel, David Moufang/Move D

Active in the music business since the 1990s, Ricardo Villalobos, Sonja Moonear, Ata, Move D and Roman Flügel have a broad horizon of experience from which they speak about themselves, their subculture and its development.


LIBERATION DAY
Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, 2016, 100 min.
Director: Ugis Olte, Morten Traavik
Cast: Tomaž Čubej, Tomislav Gangl, Matej Gobec, Gregor Musa, Saso Pušnik, Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Under the loving but firm guidance of an old fan-turned-director and cultural diplomat, and to the surprise of a whole world, the former Yugoslavian cult band Laibach becomes the first foreign rock group ever to perform in the fortress state of North Korea. Confronting strict ideology and cultural differences, they struggle to get the band's songs through the needle’s eye of censorship before they can be unleashed on an audience that has never before been exposed to alternative rock’n’roll. Meanwhile, loudspeakers are being set up to blare propaganda at the border between the two Koreas, and a countdown to war is announced. The hills are alive… with the sound of music.


ON THE ROAD

United Kingdom, 2016, 121 min.
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Cast: Ellie Rowsell, Joff Oddie, Theo Ellis, Joel Amey, Leah Harvey, James McArdle, Paul Popplewell, Jamie Quinn, Shirley Henderson

In the summer of 2015, Ellie Rowsell, Joff Oddie, Joel Amey and Theo Ellis take their band Wolf Alice (which was named after a short story by Angela Carter) on tour through Great Britain and Ireland, to promote their seductive, darkly euphoric debut album 'My Love is Cool' – and find themselves confronted by sudden fame. Director Michael Winterbottom accompanies the band and observes the realities of life on tour from the perspective of a new member of the crew: from the energetic interplay between the band and its young audience and the moments of ecstasy on stage, to the exhaustion backstage. In time, the relationships between the travellers are also brought to light – with a few surprising turns.


PATTI CAKE$
USA, 2016, 108 min.
Director: Geremy Jasper
Cast: Danielle Macdonald, Bridget Everett, Siddharth Dhananjay, Mamoudou Athie, Cathy Moriarty, Sahr Ngaujah, McCaul Lombardi, Wass Stevens, MC Lyte

Patricia Dombrowski (a.k.a. “Killa P”, a.k.a. "Patti Cake$") drafts rhymes while serving drinks at a dingy New Jersey dive bar, at the same time trying to pay off her coarse but beloved nana’s medical bills and support her hard-drinking mother, whose own musical aspirations faded long ago. Patti and her rap partner and best friend Jheri share dreams of fame, fortune and escaping Dirty Jersey for good, but they have yet to find a producer with the "fire beats" they need. Undaunted by the taunts of local goons, Patti unexpectedly gravitates to a reclusive death-metal musician named Basterd Antichrist, a newcomer who just might be able to help her achieve hip-hop superstardom.


TOKYO IDOLS
Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, 2017, 90 min.
Director: Kyoko Miyake
Cast: Rio Hiiragi, Koji Yoshida, Rio Rio Brothers, Koichiro Mitsui, Rio’s Family, P.IDL, Mitacchi, Ryoka Oshima Fans, Harajuku Story, Harajuku Story fans, Amore Carina, Amore Carina Fans, Itaru Tsurumi, Satoshi Hamano, Minori Kitahara, Hyadain, Akio Nakamori, Motohiro Onishi, Masayoshi Sakai, Dempa Gumi Inc., X21, Up Up Girls, Bellring Girl Heart

“Idols” has fast become a phenomenon in Japan, as girl bands and pop music permeate Japanese life. The eye-opening TOKYO IDOLS gets at the heart of a cultural phenomenon driven by an obsession with young female sexuality and Internet popularity. This ever-growing phenomenon is examined via Rio, a bona fide Tokyo Idol, who takes us along on her journey towards fame. Now meet her “brothers”: a group of middle-aged male super-fans who devote their lives to following her – both in real life and in the virtual world. Once considered to be on the fringes of society, these "brothers", who gave up salaried jobs to pursue their interest in female idol culture, have since become mainstream via the Internet, highlighting the growing disconnect between men and women in hypermodern societies.

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