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Roberta
Directed by Antonino D'Ambrosio • Documentary • 2022 • 87 minutes
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Antonino D'Ambrosio, this is the long overdue documentary about the legendary Roberta Flack. Of course she is well known the world over for “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and "Killing Me Soft...
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How They Got Over
Directed by Robert Clem • Documentary • With J.W. Alexander, Ira Tucker • 2018 • 87 minutes
How They Got Over tells the story of how Black gospel quartet music became a primary source for what we would call rock and roll, and in the process helped to break down racial walls in 1950s America.
Be...
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Poly Styrene: I am a Cliché
Directed by Celeste Bell, Paul Sng • Documentary • With Ruth Negga, Thurston Moore, Kathleen Hanna • 2021 • 96 minutes
Poly Styrene was the first woman of color in the UK to front a successful rock band. She introduced the world to a new sound of rebellion, using her unconventional voice to sin...
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It Came From Aquarius Records
Directed by Kenneth Thomas • Documentary • With John Darnielle, Wayne Coyne, Ty Segall, Matt Groening • 2022 • 108 minutes
Indie rock, psychedelic, folk, krautrock, weirdo Finnish prog rock, Japanese noise, glitchy black metal... Aquarius Records discovered and promoted all of this and more, yea...
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The Pleasures of Being Out of Step: Notes on the Life of Nat Hentoff
Directed by David L. Lewis • Documentary • With Nat Hentoff, Amiri Baraka, Karen Durbin • 2013 • 86 minutes
Nat Hentoff was one of the enduring voices of the last 65 years, a writer who championed jazz as an art form and was present at the creation of ‘alternative’ journalism in America. This un...
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Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise
Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Sun Ra and his Arkestra • 1980 • 59 minutes
Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poet...
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La Paloma - The Melody of Longing
Directed by Sigrid Faltin • Documentary • 2008 • 52 minutes
"La Paloma" was born in the 1860s as a Cuban Habanera, composed by the Basque Sebastian Iradier. His simple love song took off on a flight around the world and became an immediate hit in Mexico. "La Paloma" brought tears to the eyes of ...
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Gil Scott-Heron: Black Wax
Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Gil Scott-Heron • 1983 • 79 minutes
BLACK WAX is a musical-political entertainment film produced and directed by Robert Mugge. It centers on the late African American poet-singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron - the man Melody Maker called "the most dang...
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Gospel According To Al Green
Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Ken Tucker • 1984 • 66 minutes
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AL GREEN looks at Green's transition from hugely successful soul singer to gospel artist and fundamentalist preacher. Filmed in concert in Washington, D.C., in rehearsal in...
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a-ha: The Movie
Directed by Thomas Robsahm • Documentary • With Morten Harket, Pål Waaktaar, Magne Furuholmen • 2021 • 108 minutes
Follows the band a-ha on tour, telling the full story of how three young men followed their impossible dream of becoming Norwegian pop stars. When Take On Me reached number 1 on Bil...
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Abba Forever: The Winner Takes It All
Directed by Chris Hunt • Documentary • With Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad • 2019 • 51 minutes
It's been 50 years since Abba's founders met, 40 since their last concert, and 20 since Mama Mia! became a worldwide phenomena. This multi-Gold Award-winning doc t...
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Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?
Directed by John Scheinfeld • Documentary • With Micky Dolenz, Terry Gilliam • 2010 • 116 minutes
In this definitive documentary on the Grammy® award winning music legend Harry Nilsson, friends, family and colleagues delve into the acclaimed singer-songwriter's music, creative process and person...
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The Return of Ruben Blades
Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Rubén Blades, Linda Ronstadt, Nat Hentoff • 1985 • 82 minutes
THE RETURN OF RUBEN BLADES follows the singer to Harvard, where he gets his master's degree in international law; to his old neighborhood in Panama; to California for a recording session w...
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And Still I Sing
Directed by Fazila Amiri • Documentary • 2023 • 90 minutes
Amidst the United States and Taliban peace negotiations, Afghanistan’s controversial pop star and activist Aryana Sayeed mentors hopeful contestants on the hit singing TV series Afghan Star, including the only two female singers, Zahra E...
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Elis & Tom: só tinha de ser com você
Directed by Roberto de Oliveira, Jom Tob Azulay • Documentary • With Tom Jobim, Elis Regina • 2023 • 101 minutes
Los Angeles, 1974. Tom Jobim, the incarnation of Bossa Nova, and Elis Regina, then Brazil's most popular singer, met to record what would become one of the most iconic albums in the h...
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Sirens
Directed by Rita Baghdadi • Documentary • With Lilas Mayassi, Shery Bechara • 2022 • 80 minutes
SIRENS intimately chronicles the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metalheads whose burgeoning fame is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution. Its members w...
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Fiddlin’
Directed by Julie Simone • Documentary • With Presley Barker, Wayne C. Henderson, Kitty Amaral • 2019 • 88 minutes
Sister filmmakers Julie Simone and Vicki Vlasic return to their Appalachian roots to film at the world's oldest Fiddler's Convention. With multiple generations jamming together, Fid...
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The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee Scratch Perry
Directed by Adam Bhala Lough, Ethan Higbee • Documentary • With Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Paul McCartney, The Clash, Bunny Wailer, Marcus Garvey, Carl Bradshaw, Eve, Benicio Del Toro • 2008 • 95 minutes
THE UPSETTER tells the wild, weed-fueled story of Lee “Scratch” Perry — a ...
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Music for Black Pigeons
Directed by Jørgen Leth, Andreas Koefoed • Documentary • With Jakob Bro, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell • 2022 • 92 minutes
An informed and intimate portrayal of the jazz scene that offers revelatory glimpses for fans of the genre, Music For Black Pigeons strikes a universal chord in its p...
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Marcus
Directed by Patrick Savey • Documentary • With Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Miles Davis • 2014 • 97 minutes
Patrick Savey plunges us into Marcus’s world, capturing the New York roots of the legendary bass player, following his path like the pebbles of Tom Thumb, as he meets mast...
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Amateur on Plastic
Directed by Mark Robinson • Documentary • With Butch Willis, Jeff Krulik, Mark Robinson, Gibby Haynes, Ian MacKaye, Guy Picciotto, Karl Hendricks, Brendan Canty • 2020 • 73 minutes
Butch Willis is a Washington, D.C. rock legend. Born and raised in 1960s suburban Maryland, Byron Henry "Butch" Wil...
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Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film
Directed by Hanley Banks • Documentary • With Bill Callahan • 2014 • 65 minutes
This strikingly shot concert documentary follows enigmatic Drag City singer-songwriter Bill Callahan on a two-week tour from California to New York. For the past 25 years, under both the Smog moniker and under his ow...
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We Were Famous, You Don't Remember: The Embarrassment
Directed by Daniel Fetherston and Danny Szlauderbach • Documentary • With Bill Goffrier, Brent Giessmann, John Nichols, Ron Klaus, Evan Dando, Freedy Johnston, Grant Hart, Thomas Frank • 2022 • 108 minutes
Ignited by punk’s invasion of the Great Plains, America’s gawkiest and greatest lost rock ...
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Accordions Rising
Directed by Roberta Cantow • Documentary • With Guy Klucevsek, William Schimmel, Pauline Oliveros • 2016 • 74 minutes
What if everything we thought we knew about the accordion were wrong? This film shatters the mistaken notions and tells the real story. Accordions have returned, not only with am...