Doc’n Roll Film Festival is the wonderfully spirited, independent film festival that only shows music-based documentaries. It challenges with international stories, and is gaining an international reputation for being THE place to premiere your film – and it opens on NOVEMBER 1st. Organised by the brilliant Colm Forde and Vanessa Lobon Garcia, they are two reasons why London is a city that continues to challenge and be culturally exciting.
They invited Cold Lips editor, and poet, Kirsty Allison to join the jury to decide which film will win the the Best Music Documentary 2018 prize, alongside the legend Geoff Travis (founder, Rough Trade Records), Estella Adeyeri (musician with Big Joanie Band and sound engineer), the most excellent Oli Harbottle (Head of Distribution, Dogwoof) and Jess Partridge (PRS Foundation and London in Stereo).
Over the next month, 28 music documentaries will be screened.
HERE ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS:
Slow Club – Our Most Brilliant Friends + Q&A
Dir. Piers Dennis, UK, 2018, 70 mins
Q&A with director and band members Rebecca Taylor and Charles Watson
6:30pm Thursday 1 November – Barbican Centre
World premiere
Kojey Radical short film + Q&A
Dir. Dean Chalkley, 2018, UK, 7:15 mins
Q&A with director and Kojey Radical
Fri 2 Nov, 6:30pm – The Photographers’ Gallery
We Are The League (How Deep Do You Want It?) + Q&A
Dir. George Hencken, UK, 2018, 90 mins
Q&A with director and talent
9:00pm Friday 2 November – Genesis Cinema
World premiere
We Are The League (How Deep Do You Want It?) is a deep and meaningful feature length documentary about (officially) one of the most offensive bands of all time, The Anti-Nowhere League.
It’s the story of four blokes in leather trousers who crawled out of their unlikely home town of Tunbridge Wells in the early 1980s, shoved a carrot up the arse of the post-punk scene, and left a trail of outrage and disgust in their wake – and continue to do so to this day.
Packed full of never-before-seen archive footage – from the League’s first ever show at the world-famous Lyceum in London, to clips from Stewart Copeland’s legendary lost nouveau-punk art film odyssey So What!, We Are The League (How Deep Do You Want It?) tells the full uncensored story, in the frank and unapologetic words of the original members, of how a biker, a skinhead, a grammar school boy and a Persian exile with no respect for anything, no discernible musical talent and no ambition nevertheless surfed the second wave of punk out of the Garden Of England, all the way around the world – and back again.
They didn’t change the face of rock’n’roll, but they sure pissed off a lot of people along the way.
Some Other Guys – The Story Of The Big Three + Q&A
Dir. Todd Kipp, 2017, Canada, 100 mins
Q&A with director and Johnny Hutchinson (TBC)
3:00pm Saturday 3 November – Curzon Soho
London premiere
The Wedding Present: Something Left Behind + Q&A
Dir. Andrew Jezard, 2018, UK, 87 mins
Q&A with director, David Gedge and Shaun Charman, hosted by Shaun Keaveny (BBC 6 Music)
4:00pm Saturday 3 November – Rio Dalston
London premiere
My View: Clem Burke + Q&A
Dir. Philip Sansom, UK 2018, 50 mins
Q&A with director
6:30pm Saturday 3 November – Picturehouse Central
UK premiere
RocKabul + Q&A
Dir. Travis Beard, 2018, Afghanistan, 77 mins
Q&A with Yosuf Ahad Shah
2:30pm Sunday 4 November – Genesis Cinema
UK premiere
Mantra: Sounds into Silence + Q&A
Dir. Georgia Wyss, Spain, 2017, 85 mins
Q&A with director
4:00pm Sunday 4 November – Barbican Centre
UK premiere
Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records
Dir. Nicolas Jack Davies, 2018, UK, 85 mins
5:30pm Sunday 4 November – Rio Dalston + after-party at Ridley Market Bar
3:00pm Saturday 10 November – The Castle Cinema
8:45pm Thursday 15 November – Ritzy Brixton
Never Stop – A Music That Resists + Q&A
Dir. Jacqueline Caux, 2017, France, 80 mins
Q&A with director
8:00pm Wednesday 7 November – Everyman Cinema King’s Cross
UK Premiere
DJ Mag present the UK premiere of Never Stop – A Music That Resists at Doc n Roll Festival in London on 7th November at the Everyman Theatre in King’s Cross. There will also be a Q&A with director, Jacqueline Caux. Book now via docnrollfestival.com
Never Stop is the definitive, striking and beautifully put together story on Detroit techno, with four key insightful interviews from the four stars: Juan Atkins (speaking about the unparalleled creativity he felt at school, even before Cybotron and Model 500), Derrick May (explaining what it was like to be his disciple before starting Transmat – and doing that little thing of creating Strings of Life), Carl Craig (on loop meditation, with footage of his complex live performances around more progressive sounds on Planet E), and Jeff Mills (talking about Underground Resistance, and then Axis, Purpose Maker, Tomorrow and the more mysterious fourth (6277)).
Appearing as medicine men of space, Caux projects a parallel universe of blues-type outsiders developing their music around the theology of sci-fi fantasy and space travel. The only music featured in the documentary which isn’t from the techno-quad is by Sun Ra. “From their childhood when they were reading science fiction books and when they were studying futuristic things in school, we never have to forget that Afrofuturism is an important part of their culture,” she says, achieving a rare freedom, with a zero gravity spaciousness only available in indie film. The French director juxtaposes ghostly eviction horror-show houses and warehouses as symbols of post-industrialisation life after motor city. The mise en scene shadow is long as Derrick May calls out the music industry for bringing out CDs to kill the independent music scene they created. He also slams most DJs, saying they are not artists, just people distracted by easy money. The director, who’s worked with many of the artists previously says: “For me, techno music is a weapon for freedom offered by few musicians, especially the pioneers, because, when they started doing this music they were not doing it to be famous, the were doing it, as Juan Atkins told me one day, because we did not want to die psychically. Now, too often, musicians wanted to go too quickly to fame and we can feel it into their music…”
This complex duality hearing Carl Craig proclaim that the E in his Planet E recordings label stood for Earth, rather than the gurning fruit taken by travellers in nightclubs where these living legends have had to hustle for their notoriety and musicological standing – sits aside a dignity that they will live in the tides of compositional excellence forever. Jeff Mills’ shelter in libraries adds further meteoric ammunition to this outstanding, inspiring polemic of independence.
“It is a metaphor of the death of the ancient music industry after the death of the industrialisation which destroyed the city,” Caux told DJ Mag’s Off The Floor.
Never Stop is a joyfully unrammed with attention-seeking talking heads. Derrick May’s humour does suggest this may not have been the way if they had been let in by the mainstream industry, getting signed to the labels putting out Prince. Instead, left to emit light from the far distant reaches of the superuniverse, these techno lords glisten like true artists who will go down in the history of time.
I Can Only Be Mary Lane + Q&A
Dir. Jesseca Ynez, 2018, USA, 60 mins
Q&A with director
6:30pm Thursday 8 November – Picturehouse Central
UK premiere
Anorac + Q&A
Dir Gruffydd Davies, 2018, UK, 2018, 99 mins
Q&A with filmmaker and Huw Stephens
8:45pm Thursday 8 November – Barbican Centre
London premiere
Is It Punk Music?
Dir. Rodrigue Huart, 2017, France, 50 mins
Q&A with director
6:30pm Friday 9 November – Picturehouse Central
UK premiere
Anne Clark: I’ll Walk Out Into Tomorrow + Q&A
Dir. Claus Withopf, 2018, Germany, 81 mins
Q&A with director and Anne Clark
3:30pm Saturday 10 November – Barbican Centre
UK premiere
Silvana + Q&A
Dir. Mika Gustafson, Olivia Kastebring, Christina Tsiobanelis, 2017, UK, 95 mins
Q&A with directors and Silvana
6:00pm Saturday 10 November – Curzon Soho
London premiere
Stories from She Punks + Q&A
Dir. Gina Birch and Helen Reddington, 2018, UK, 45 mins
Q&A filmmakers
7:00pm Saturday 10 November – Genesis Cinema
World premiere
Blue Note Records – Beyond the Notes
Dir. Sophie Huber, 2018, Switzerland/USA, 85 mins
3pm Sun 11th November – Picturehouse Central – London premiere – Q&A with director
1pm Sat 17th November – Ronnie Scotts – Q&A
Sepultura Endurance
Dir. Otavio Juliano, 2017, Brazil, 100 mins
4:00pm Sunday 11 November Rio Dalston
UK premiere
Trailer –
The Library Music Film + Q&A
Dir. Paul Elliott & Sean Lamberth, 2018, UK, 99 mins
Q&A with directors and Shawn Lee
5:00pm Sunday 11 November – Curzon Soho
UK premiere
Chilly Gonzales – Shut Up and Play the Piano + Q&A
Dir. Philipp Jedicke, 2018, Germany, 82 mins
Q&A with director and Chilly Gonzales
8:45pm Monday 12 November – Barbican Centre
My Darling Son: Morski & The Turbans + Q&A
Dir. Pavlina Ivanova, 2018, Bulgaria, 61 mins
Q&A filmmaker and Morski
8:30pm Tuesday 13 November Rich Mix
UK premiere
Myth + Q&A
Dirs. Leonid Kanter and Ivan Yasniy, 2017, Ukraine, 62 mins
Q&A with guest TBC
6:30pm Wednesday 14 November – Picturehouse Central
UK premiere
Slave to the Grind
Dir. Doug Brown, 2018, Canada, 100 mins
Q&A with director
8:30pm Wednesday 14 November – Rich Mix
London premiere
About a Badly Drawn Boy: The Story of The Hour Of Bewilderbeast + Q&A
Dir. The Mitcham Submarine, 2018, UK, 95 mins
Q&A with director and Damon Gough hosted by Pete Mitchell (DJ & Broadcaster)
9:10pm Thursday 15 November – Picturehouse Central
London premiere
How They Got Over: Black Quartets and the Road to Rock’n’Roll
Dir. Robert Clem, 2017, USA, 87 mins
Q&A with director hosted by author Viv Broughton
4:00 pm Saturday 17 November Picturehouse Central
UK premiere
So, which band is your boyfriend in….? + Q&A
Dir. Suzy Harrison, 2018, UK 2018, 97 min
Q&A with filmmaker
6:30 pm Saturday 17 November – Genesis Cinema
UK premiere
Pure Love – the voice of Ella Fitzgerald
Dir. Katja Duregger, 2017, Germany, 52 mins
4:00 pm Sunday 18 November Bertha Doc House
Ethiopiques: Revolt of the Soul + Q&A
Dir. Maciek Bochniak, 2017, Poland/Germany, 70 mins
Q&A
5:30 pm Sunday 18 November Curzon Soho
UK premiere
Listen to My Song + Q&A
Dir. Danny Mitchell, 2018, UK, 49 mins
Q&A with director
6:00 pm Sunday 18 November – Picturehouse Central
World premiere