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Face the Music Film Festival featuring Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin
July 12, 2019 - July 28, 2019
In the mid-60s big changes were afoot in the US, culturally, politically, and musically. Four rock music/concert films that explore these changes are being released in theaters this summer; we are hosting a micro-festival featuring all four films between July 26th and August 4th. Scroll down for dates, times and locations.
Aretha Franklin: AMAZING GRACE In 1972, having topped the pop charts with a series of hits, Aretha Franklin returned to her family’s gospel roots. She held two concerts of the most deeply moving spirituals at a Baptist church in Watts, a Los Angeles neighborhood still recovering from the riots six years earlier. Director Sydney Pollack was hired to document the shows, but he neglected to bring the clappers to mark the sound. As a result, the footage sat unused for more than 40 years. Just months after Franklin’s death, this film is finally being seen, and it’s a thrilling, unforgettable testament to her musical influences and legacy. The camera pans across the ecstatic audiences and then returns to Aretha’s soaring vocals. It makes for a raw, exalted performance, buoyed by the Southern California Community Choir and jubilant attendees taken over by the spirit. Amazing Grace captures a remarkable performer near the peak of her prodigious power. (87 min) WATCH THE TRAILER
Jimi Hendrix: ELECTRIC CHURCH Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church presents the legendary guitarist in full flight at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival before the largest US audience of his career, only two months before his death. This critically acclaimed film combines color, 16mm multi-camera footage of Hendrix’s Independence Day concert in its original performance sequence together with a new documentary that traces his journey to the festival amidst the dark shadow of civil rights unrest and the unrelenting toll of the Vietnam War. The audio soundtrack includes stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes by Hendrix’s recording engineer Eddie Kramer, taken directly from the original master tapes.The organizers were keen to push back against the cultural divide that was very much in evidence in the Deep South. It was assumed that rural audiences would not take kindly to “long-hair” bands, and that black and white artists could not comfortably exist on the same bill; Atlanta Pop set out to challenge those beliefs. (89 min) WATCH THE TRAILER
ECHO IN THE CANYON Echo In The Canyon celebrates the explosion of popular music that came out of LA’s Laurel Canyon in the mid-60s as folk went electric and The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield and The Mamas and the Papas gave birth to the California Sound. It was a moment (1965 to 1967) when bands came to LA to emulate The Beatles and Laurel Canyon emerged as a hotbed of creativity and collaboration for a new generation of musicians who would soon put an indelible stamp on the history of American popular music.Featuring Jakob Dylan, the film explores the beginnings of the Laurel Canyon music scene. Dylan uncovers never-before-heard personal details behind the bands and their songs and how that music continues to inspire today. Echo in the Canyon contains candid conversations and performances with Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr, Michelle Phillips, Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Roger McGuinn and Jackson Browne as well as contemporary musicians they influenced such as Tom Petty (in his very last film interview), Beck, Fiona Apple, Cat Power, Regina Spektor and Norah Jones. (82 min) WATCH THE TRAILER
BABYLON You’ve seen The Harder They Come, maybe you’ve seen Rockers, but you’ve never seen anything like Babylon. Franco Rosso’s incendiary film had its world premiere at Cannes in 1980 but went unreleased in the U.S. for “being too controversial, and likely to incite racial tension.” Raw and smoldering, it follows a young dancehall DJ (Brinsley Forde, frontman of landmark British reggae group Aswad) in South London as he pursues his musical ambitions, battling fiercely against the racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbors, police, and the National Front. Written by Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia) and shot by two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges (The Killing Fields) with beautifully smoky cinematography that has been compared to Taxi Driver, Babylon is fearless and unsentimental, yet tempered by the hazy bliss of the dancehall set to a blistering reggae soundtrack featuring Aswad, Johnny Clarke, Dennis Bovell, and more. (95 min) WATCH THE TRAILER
Tickets: Single Film: $8 Festival Pass (4 films) $15
Friday, August 2
Apollo 11 – 7pm IU Fine Arts Theater
High Life – 7:45 IU Global & International Theater
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church – 8:45 IU Fine Arts Theater – Last Chance!
Saturday, August 3
High Life – 7:45 Global & International Theater
Echo in the Canyon – 4pm – IU Fine Arts Theater
Aretha Franklin: Amazing Grace – 6pm – IU Fine Arts Theater – Last Chance!
Apollo 11 – 8:15 – IU Fine Arts Theater – Last Chance!
Sunday, August 4 at Bear’s Place
Echo in the Canyon 5:15 – Last Chance!
Babylon 7:45 – Last Chance
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