Music Docs at DocFest 2017!
From Opening Night to Closing Night to many nights in between, check out these music docs at San Francisco DocFest!
Opening Night: TURN IT AROUND: THE STORY OF EAST BAY PUNK
Corbett Redford, World Premiere, Alamo Wed 5/31 7p
Stage dive into 30 years of history exploring Northern California’s role in the evolution of punk rock. SF punk pioneers helped take the punk underground global, but as the once vibrant scene became wrought with violence and racism, punks over the bridge in the East Bay responded by creating a fun, inclusive style that carried on the region’s tradition of radical thought. Banding together around Berkeley’s all volunteer 924 Gilman Club, this diverse collective of misfits created a DIY, no-spectators petri dish for art & music that changed the world at large.
Narrated by Iggy Pop, executive produced by Green Day and featuring the music of many of the most famous and infamous punk bands ever.
Hold on to your ticket stub to get into the after party at DNA Lounge for a Gilman-style live music showcase featuring The Pathogens, The Love Songs, Kamala and the Karnivores and Hammerbombs. The show will be hosted by Jello Biafra.
Closing Night: BURIED IN THE MIX
Timothy Crandle, Sneak Preview – Local Filmmaker, Roxie Thu 6/15 715p
Buried In The Mix explores the lives, losses, and loves of a few of the bands and illustrious characters who contributed to the early San Francisco punk music scene, a scene distinguished by its boisterous energy and unbridled creativity. Through archival imagery by such notable photographers as Bobby Castro and Ruby Ray, archival video, studio recordings, and contemporary interview and performance footage, Buried In The Mix assembles a collage of stories that combine to tell a story of the whole punk movement. Featuring The Mutants, The Avengers and rare footage from the infamous Mabuhay.
Vanguard Awardee: OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG POEM STORY
Jamie Meltzer, Roxie Sun June 4, 1230p
Off the Charts: The Song Poem Story is a fascinating and often hilarious documentary that exposes the strange underworld of the song-poem industry. In this little known subculture, “ordinary people” respond to come-on ads on the back pages of magazines (“Send in Your Lyrics and Make $50,000 in royalties!?), mailing in their heartfelt but often bizarre poems to “music industry” companies that, for a fee, turn those poems into real recordings. Through encounters with several song-poem writers, the jaded producers and musicians who set their words to music, and a few of the growing number of zealous song-poem connoisseurs, Off the Charts explores a truly unique, never-before-seen slice of Gothic Americana. Shocking, funny, and heart-wrenching all at once, Off the Charts is a fascinating look at one of the strangest subcultures in our American landscape.
Retrospective screening honoring this year’s SF DocFest NonFiction Vanguard Award recipient, Jamie Meltzer. Post-screening discussion with the filmmaker and film critic, Michael Fox.
SONIC ODDITIES: A NIGHT WITH STEPHEN PARR OF ODDBALL FILMS with live musical score by bran(…)pos
Stephen Parr, Roxie Tue 6/13 715p
San Francisco’s own Stephen Parr is a video jockey par excellence, a clip master who honed his skills long before YouTube with actual motion pictures. Sonic Oddities is a two-hour trek through the auditory oddities of film history and features offbeat archival, historical and experimental short films, from his own collection of more than 50,000 films. With a live musical score and mix by bran(…)pos
Patrick Sheehan, California Premiere, Roxie Sat 6/3 930p & Sun 6/11 5p
The story of Henry “Gip” Gipson, a gravedigger by day and a hard drinking bluesman by night. Today, there are only a small handful of original juke joints left including “Gip’s Place” – a ramshackle, thrown-together juke joint Henry built in his Alabama backyard back in 1952.
Keith Jones, Roxie Fri 6/9 715p
In the 1980s, communism ruled the land in Czechoslovakia. The totalitarian regime was paranoid about dissenters and went to extreme measures to silence them. However, an emerging generation took inspiration from alternative culture to create their own worldview, politics and eventually, a revolution, all inspired by vinyl.
Iñaki Alforja, Roxie Fri 6/9 930p
Motxila 21 are a unique rock band full of strength, passion and enthusiasm… but oh!…there is something peculiar about them … half of the band’s members have Down syndrome. The documentary is a road movie.about diversity, about respect, friendship, creativity, it’s about rock, about music, but above all it’s about people.
