Directed by Michal Goldman • Documentary • 1987 • 75 minutes

The first film to document the revival of klezmer music, now a worldwide movement, Jumpin’ Night tracks two foundational groups of brilliant young musicians, Kapelye and the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and includes rare footage of the e...

Directed by Andrea E. Leland • Documentary • With James Brewster • 2006 • 71 minutes

Scratch band music, or Quelbe, is the grass-roots folk music from the U.S. Virgin Islands. The lyrics are a form of oral history relaying the day-to-day trials and tribulations of living on a small Caribbean isl...

Directed by Caroline Leaf • Documentary • 1981 • 27 minutes

Quebec-born singing sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle enjoy international acclaim--for their inimitable style, their talent as songwriters and especially for their unassuming, informal selves! With sister Jane as business manager, Kate a...

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...

Directed by Farhad Zamani • Documentary • 2000 • 158 minutes

Googoosh was Iran's most famous and beloved pop diva, until she was silenced following the 1979 Islamic revolution when female singers were labeled “temptresses” and forbidden to release records or perform publicly in the presence of m...

Directed by Peter Sillen • Documentary • With Jesse Bernstein • 2012 • 89 minutes

'I Am Secretly an Important Man' is a portrait of writer and poet Steven J. Bernstein (aka Jesse Bernstein), one of Seattle's most celebrated and troubled voices. His angry, surprisingly fresh and lyrical writings ...

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...

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...

Directed by Daniel Schmid • Documentary • 1984 • 87 minutes

Meet the inhabitants of the "Casa di Riposa" in Milan, the world's first nursing home for retired opera singers, founded by composer Giuseppe Verdi in 1896.

In his documentary film Tosca's Kiss, which has developed an underground cult...

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...

Directed by Wolf Koening, Roman Kroiter • Documentary • 1962 • 26 minutes

The story of popular singer Paul Anka. He rose from obscurity to become the idol of millions of adolescent fans around the world. This film takes a candid look at both sides of the footlights as well as the promotion indus...

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...

Directed by Kyoko Miyake • Documentary • 2017 • 88 minutes

"IDOLS" has fast become a phenomenon in Japan as girl bands and pop music permeate Japanese life. TOKYO IDOLS—an eye-opening film gets at the heart of a cultural phenomenon driven by an obsession with young female sexuality and internet ...

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...

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...

Directed by Arne Johnson and Shane King • Documentary • With Carrie Brownstein, Beth Ditto • 2007 • 90 minutes

At Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp, girls ranging in age from eight to 18 are taught that it’s OK to sweat like a pig, scream like a banshee, wail on their instruments with complete and utter aband...

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 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...