Paul Blom started organising the Sound on Screen Music Film Festival and the Horrorfest because he finds that underground documentaries and movies are much more interesting than commercial fare.
That principle still applies as we go into the sixth Sound on Screen Festival this weekend – with a Joburg chapter closely mirroring the Cape Town festival.
Blom says it was incredibly good timing that netted him a screening of Gogol Bordello – Non Stop (Sat, 8pm). The documentary sees filmmaker Margarita Jimeno track the gypsy punk band from Manhattan’s Lower East side as they grow from dingy basements to international main stages, from NYC to Italy, between 2001 and 2007.
Gogol Bordello play at Oppikoppi festival on August 9. There will be a ticket giveaway for Oppikoppi at the Bioscope screening.
We Are Twisted F*cking Sister (Sat, 5pm) takes another tack, looking at the glam rock band at a point in their career when no record label wanted to touch them. “But the crowds were pulling in,” explained Blom.
Using current interviews with band members mixed with old footage, it looks back at the 10-year stretch of the band slogging away to seemingly overnight success.
Monsterman (Sun, 5pm), on the other hand, is the dramatic real-life story of heavy metal band Lordi, the first Finnish band to win the Eurovision Song Contest. Despite this international success, they have still not cracked their local music scenez with the documentary touching on the theme of keeping your dreams alive after the rise and fall.
Director Steven Morris is coming out from Canada to attend the screening of his documentary Vann “Piano Man” Walls: The Spirit of R&B (Sun, 7pm) and will be available for a q&a afterwards. The documentary looks at the origins of rhythm and blues, concentrating on one of the pioneers, Vann Walls, a contemporary of legends such as Dr John, Ry Cooder and Atlantic Records founder, Ahmet Ertugun.
There is also a South African feature in the form of Stone Cold Jane Austen (Sun, 3pm): “We thought not everyone would have seen it on circuit, and it’s not out on dvd yet,” said Blom. They will screen some alternative scenes and he hopes director Jon Savage will comment on the deleted material in addition to doing the q&a after the screening.
The documentary about the death of Kurt Cobain, Soaked in Bleach (Sat, 5pm), is strictly linked to an investigation by a private investigator, not the authorised biography (Montage of Heck, which will be featured at the festival as a dvd giveaway).
“This is just about the investigation into his death and the suspicion that there was foul play. This guy has been working on this for the past 20 years and it’s something he can’t let go. It’s basic things like they ruled it a suicide on the same day, but the gun only went off for fingerprinting a month later,” explained Blom.
l The Sound on Screen Music Festival takes place at The Bioscope. Check www.thebioscope.co.za or http://www. flamedrop.com/sos/index.htm for the full programme and schedule.