Directed by Lutz Gregor • Documentary • With Fatoumata Diawara, Ahmed Ag Kaedi, Bassékou Kouyaté • 2016 • 93 minutes

The West African country of Mali is widely recognized as the birthplace of the blues, later carried by the transatlantic slave trade to America's cotton fields. Yet despite cent...

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...

Directed by Rogier Kappers • Documentary • 2005 • 95 minutes

Alan Lomax (1915-2002) devoted his life to recording the world's folk tunes before they would permanently disappear with the rise of the modern music industry. In LOMAX THE SONGHUNTER filmmaker Rogier Kappers follows the route that Lom...

Directed by Heddy Honigmann • Documentary • 1999 • 108 minutes

THE UNDERGROUND ORCHESTRA is a glorious documentary profile of musicians who play on the sidewalks of Paris and in the Metro. Filmmaker Heddy Honigmann (METAL AND MELANCHOLY and O AMOR NATURAL), illuminates the lives and music of a r...

Directed by François Reichenbach • Documentary • With Johnny Hallyday, Les Chaussettes Noires • 1963 • 11 minutes

IN MEMORY OF ROCK captures the power, promise, and fear generated by the early days of rock n’roll. It is also a fascinating study in the juxtaposition of image and music. Outside an...

Directed by Joe Angio • Documentary • With Fred Armisen, Jonathan Franzen, Mary Harron • 2014 • 96 minutes

Revenge of the Mekons charts the unlikely career of the genre-defying collective notorious for being—as rock critic Greil Marcus notes—“the band that took punk ideology most seriously.” Bor...

Directed by Philippe Béziat • Documentary • With Jean-François Sivadier, Natalie Dessay • 2012 • 112 minutes

An exhilarating account of the creative process and a rousing, uniquely accessible rendition of Verdi's glorious opera. Director Beziat, known for his innovative documentaries on classica...

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 ...

Directed by François Verster • Documentary • 2002 • 54 minutes

It will take anyone in the world no more than a few bars to recognize this song: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, also sung as "Wimoweh”.

The melody has been covered at least two hundred times by artists as diverse as James Last, Henri Sa...

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...

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...

Directed by Wendy Bashi • Documentary • 2021 • 46 minutes

Since October 2014 in Beni (North Kivu) people live in fear in this area of Democratic Republic of Congo. In this hectic and chaotic context, a group of young rappers and musicians dream about glory and success. They call themselves “Libe...

Directed by Ryan Douglass and Sara Leavitt • Documentary • 2015 • 75 minutes

For over 30 years, Martin Bisi has recorded music from his studio in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood. After a chance New York encounter, the studio was founded with money from Brian Eno, who subsequently worked on the a...

Directed by Gio Arlotta • Documentary • With Emmanuel "Jagari" Chanda, Jacco Gardner, Viktor Kasoma • 2019 • 88 minutes

The film follows the 21st Century formation of We Intend To Cause Havoc (W.I.T.C.H.), Zambia’s most popular rock band of the 1970s, and documents the life of its lead singer, J...

Directed by Jonathan Olshefski • Documentary • 2017 • 105 minutes

​Filmed with vérité intimacy for nearly a decade, Quest is the moving portrait of the Rainey family living in North Philadelphia.

Beginning at the dawn of the Obama presidency, Christopher “Quest” Rainey and his wife Christine’a ...

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...

Directed by Puloma Basu, Rob Hatch-Miller • Documentary • With Tunde Adebimpe (TV On the Radio), William Basinski (composer), Panda Bear, Avey Tare & Geologist (Animal Collective),
Matt Berninger (The National), Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai), James Chance (The Contortions), Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Y...

Directed by Lucile Chaufour • Documentary • 2012 • 79 minutes

"You're just a street kid, you'll never be a Party Secretary!"

"Maybe you don't even exist, you don't want this life anymore!"

"Communist drug, no seduction needed!"

When the Hungarian punk band QSS launched into their anthemic son...

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 ...

Directed by Roman Kroiter, Wolf Koening • Documentary • 1959 • 29 minutes

Glenn Gould, renowned Canadian concert pianist, in New York--kidding the cab driver, bantering with sound engineers at Columbia Records; and then, alone with the piano, fastidiously recording Bach's Italian Concerto.

Directed by Chris Valdés and Ted Griswold • Documentary • 2018 • 70 minutes

Olancho is the most lawless province of Honduras, the most murderous country on the planet. Here, the drug trade has taken its toll in human lives and economic damage. But to some musicians, the cartels provide an opport...

Directed by Brian Storm • Documentary • 2008 • 18 minutes

Decades before American Idol and America's Got Talent captured the attention of millons on TV, the world renowned Apollo Theater in Harlem started hosting its popular Amateur Night, which launched the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, James Bro...

Directed by Donald Brittain, Don Owen • Documentary • 1965 • 44 minutes

Produced in 1965, this is an informal portrait of the Montreal poet, novelist and songwriter, Leonard Cohen. He is seen reading his poetry to a rapt audience and also alone, or relaxing with family and friends.