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Doc’n Roll Film Festival Returns to Scotland

The ninth edition of the music documentary returns with seven Scottish big screen premieres

At Glasgow Film Theatre  2 – 6 November, 2022

Cameo Picturehouse Edinburgh 5 – 12 November, 2022

Highlights include the story of how a Sheffield council estate semi became the birthplace of electronic music in the North, the courageous apartheid-era South African trio that formed when it was illegal for them to play or live together and a celebration of the queer, radical roots of London’s New Romantic visual art, fashion and music scene in the wake of punk.

Tickets and Information

Doc´n Roll Film Festival returns to big screens nationwide this autumn, with screenings in Glasgow and Edinburgh as part of its 13-city UK tour.

The ninth edition of the music documentary festival will screen a hand-picked selection of new features and shorts showcasing major artists and unsung heroes, cult icons and underground subcultures.

The festival will boast 7 Scottish feature documentary premieres:

A Film About Studio Electrophonique:

The story of how a Sheffield council estate semi owned by panel beater, fly fisherman, water skier and midwife Ken Patten became the birthplace of electronic music in the North. Now vacant, 32 Handsworth Grange Crescent, across from The Everest pub, is where the first recordings were made for early incarnations of the bands that became The Human League, ABC, Heaven 17, Def Leppard, Clock DVA and Pulp. Not to mention the more esoteric and rarer sounds of The Electric Armpits, The Naughtiest Girl Was a Monitor and Systematic Annex. Until now, Ken’s work never attracted the attention of the masses and, by the time the bands had found fame and all bought yachts – or at least gold lamé suits – Ken had shifted back to his own unit, knocking out dents in a garage beneath the Wicker Arches.
(Glasgow 2 November; Edinburgh, 11 November)

This Is National Wake:

In 1979, in defiance of an illegitimate, racist South African regime that kept Blacks and whites separate and unequal, three young men – Ivan Kadey, a white Jewish guitarist from Johannesburg, and Gary and Punka Khoza, two Black Shangaan brothers from Soweto – dared to launch the trio National Wake. In a time and place where it was illegal for these young musicians to play or live together, their band and its fans fought back with music. They smashed every law to rebel – and filmed themselves doing so, with remarkable foresight and nerve. Forty years after National Wake was shut down by South Africa’s apartheid regime, veteran New York music journalist Mirissa Neff makes her feature debut, telling the their story with the band’s own astonishing previously archival footage (Glasgow 4 November, Edinburgh 9 November)

Lee Fields: Faithful Man:

A portrait of the uniquely charismatic US soul singer, whose voice was frequently compared to James Brown but with a style that was all his. Through the Seventies, he made his living touring the legendary Chitlin’ Circuit in the southern US, alongside some of the greatest names in blues and soul history, later landing a gig with Kool and the Gang before their rise to fame. But as the Seventies came to a close, disco began its reign and his soul career plummeted. For decades, Lee Fields thought his music dreams were dead. But with one phone call, everything changed… (Glasgow, 5 November)

TRAMPS! The Death Of Punk, The New Romantics, The Art Of Survival:

Rising from the nihilistic ashes of the punk movement in the late 1970s, a fresh crowd of flamboyant fashionistas and irreverent misfits who would later be christened the New Romantics began to materialise on the streets of London. TRAMPS! is a feature-length documentary that looks at how an onslaught of art students arriving in the city in the 1980s resulted in a unique cross-fertilisation of queer culture, visual and performance art, fashion, music and film, and a flourishing of radical, subversive creative output. (Edinburgh, 5 November)

Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande:

The British group Cymande are unsung heroes: the first British band to play at Harlem’s legendary Apollo, their message of peace, love and funk sailed far beyond Britain’s shores and helped shape music for five decades. Long after they stopped playing in the 1970s, their innovative jazz-rock-funk music played on, with tracks including the iconic ‘Bra’ sampled by the likes of De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, the Sugarhill Gang, MC Solaar and the Fugees, so they returned to play some more. In GETTING IT BACK, their story is told on screen for the first time, with tributes from a galaxy of musicians and producers influenced and enthralled by their music, including Mark Ronson, Norman Jay, Jazzie B, DJ Maseo of De la Soul, Jim James and Louie Vega. (Glasgow, 6 November; Edinburgh, 12 November)

Age of Rage:

The Australian Punk Revolution: When the first wave of punk broke on Australian shores in the 1970s, it was met with a fierce embrace that continues to reverberate today. Adopted and adapted with fearsome intensity by disenfranchised, pre-globalisation Australian kids as a challenge to the isolation and cultural vacuity of mainstream Australia, punk Down Under was a DIY counterculture – a profound, visceral critique of late 20th-century capitalism. Australian punk chose values and agendas that for many have become lifelong, and its revolution full of rage, angst and defiance has evolved. AGE OF RAGE shows that while some still stand at the edges of society, others have re-engaged, bringing their punk values with them. (Edinburgh, 8 November)

TRIP:

A journey into the World of Psychedelic Sight & Sound: An intimate film by documentary photographer and filmmaker Lilly Creightmore that captures the story of a handful of artists old and new who influenced a resurgence of psychedelic-inspired sound, at a time when a small few of her generation were in search of alternatives to the corporatised music industry.
Creightmore captures heady live performances and intimate behind-the-scenes footage of a global cohort of artists, from the US, UK, Iceland, Europe and South Africa, including garage-psych legend Roky Erickson on tour with current-day stalwarts The Black Angels, a one-off Spacemen 3 reunion, and candid footage of Dead Skeletons, Tess Parks, Anton Newcombe and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Sonic Boom, The Night Beats in Africa, The Underground Youth and Medicine Boy in Berlin. (Edinburgh, 10 November)

The festival will also host a rare Scottish screening of Rewind And Play: Theolonius Monk

(Glasgow, 3 November), where the jazz genius takes down an arrogant journalist in an infamous 1969 French TV interview, alongside UK premiere short films including Fifty Days, following musician Marie Naffah through her 2021 challenge to perform 50 gigs in 50 days, and A Man For Our Time, an animated interview piece with lo-fi pop pioneer Martin Newell of The Cleaners From Venus.

Vanessa Lobon Garcia, director and co-founder of Doc’n Roll, says: “Even in the hardest of times, music and film help us to find hope, comfort and community, so I am delighted that once again this year, Doc’n Roll can offer so many reminders of the joy that music-makers and filmmakers bring us.

“I love music documentaries and I hope to bring that love to more women. As we see from the projects submitted to Doc’n Roll for consideration, we are still far from gender equity in terms of music documentary directors and subjects,” she notes. “This year, we are ensuring that our UK touring programme has a 50/50 gender balance, as part of our commitment to helping first and second-time female directors tour their films in the UK. I hope this plays a part in inspiring female filmmakers to see that music documentary-making isn’t just a man’s world. Everyone is welcome to celebrate the power of music.”

Lobon adds: “This year we want to ensure our programme is accessible to hearing-impared audiences, and when possible to blind audiences, too. Some of this year’s films will be available to watch with subtitles, and this year all our shorts will be subtitled, to spread the opportunity to watch a great selection of films as widely as possible.”

Doc’n Roll Jury Award for Music Doc of the Year

Six films in this year’s lineup will compete for the Doc’n Roll Jury Award for Music Doc of the Year, judged by a panel of music and film luminaries. In the running for the Award are:
This is National Wake
Lee Fields: A Faithful Man
Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande
Rewind and Play: Thelonious Monk
God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines: Detroit Techno
What You Could Not Visualise: Rema-Rema

Doc’n Roll Film Festival is supported by the BFI using National Lottery funding in order to bring this project to more audiences across the UK.

Please note: all in-person Q&As are subject to change in the event of COVID-19 restrictions.

Tickets on sale via Doc n Roll Festival

GLASGOW –  GFT CINEMA

Wednesday 2 November 8.50PM

A Film About Studio Electrophonique (accessible screening)

Thursday 3 November 6.00PM

Rewind and Play: Thelonious Monk

Friday 4 November 9.00PM

This Is National Wake

Saturday 5 November 8.15PM

Lee Fields: Faithful Man + directors Q&A

Sunday 6 November 5.00PM

Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande (accessible screening)

EDINBURGH – CAMEO PICTUREHOUSE

Saturday 5 November 4.00PM

Lee Fields: Faithful Man + directors Q&A

Saturday 5 November 6.15PM

TRAMPS! The Death Of Punk, The New Romantics, The Art Of Survival + director Q&A

Tuesday 8 November 6.30PM

Age of Rage: The Australian Punk Revolution

Wednesday 9 November 6.30PM

This Is National Wake

Thursday 10 November 6.30PM

TRIP: A journey into the World of Psychedelic Sight & Sound + director Q&A

Friday 11 November 6.30PM

A Film About Studio Electrophonique

Saturday 12 November 5.00PM

Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande (accessible screening)

ALL SCOTTISH PREMIERES

Lee Fields: Faithful Man

director Q&A
Dir. Jessamyn Ansary and Joyce Mishaan, 2022, USA, 80 min
Trailer – NA

His voice has been compared to the mighty James Brown, but Lee Fields is no knock-off. He’s the real thing. Listening to the soul sounds coming through his transistor radio in the late Fifties and early Sixties, a young Lee was hooked. Through the Seventies, he made his living touring the legendary Chitlin’ Circuit in the southern US, alongside some of the greatest names in blues and soul history, later landing a gig with Kool and the Gang before their rise to fame. But as the Seventies came to a close, disco began its reign and his soul career plummeted. For decades, Lee Fields thought his music dreams were dead. But with one phone call, everything changed…

ENERGY: A Documentary about Damo Suzuki

Dir. Michelle Heighway, 2022, UK, 70 min
Trailer YouTube
An existential journey through the power of healing with the enigmatic Damo Suzuki, former lead singer of krautrock legends CAN. Critically acclaimed director Michelle Heighway has been working with the mercurial Japanese-born musician since 2014, culminating in the fascinating insights of ENERGY. The film follows Suzuki over five years of his life in Germany and the UK as he confronts cancer and attempts to continue a never-ending global tour.

TRIP: A journey into the World of Psychedelic Sight & Sound

Dir. Lilly Creightmore, 2022, UK, 80 min
Trailer YouTube
An intimate film by documentary photographer and filmmaker Lilly Creightmore that captures the story of a handful of artists old and new who influenced a resurgence of psychedelic-inspired sound, at a time when a small few of her generation were in search of alternatives to the corporatised music industry.

Creightmore captures heady live performances and intimate behind-the-scenes footage of a global cohort of artists, from the US, UK, Iceland, Europe and South Africa. You’ll experience the garage-psych legend Roky Erickson on tour with current-day stalwarts The Black Angels, watch a one-off Spacemen 3 reunion, and see candid footage of encounters with Dead Skeletons, Tess Parks, Anton Newcombe and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Sonic Boom, The Night Beats in Africa, The Underground Youth and Medicine Boy in Berlin. TRIP also introduces viewers to the emerging global psych scene, via a fan’s-eye view of annual pilgrimages such as Levitation and Desert Daze.

This Is National Wake

Dir. Mirissa Neff. 2022, USA, 66 min
Trailer YouTube

In 1979, in defiance of an illegitimate, racist South African regime that kept Blacks and whites separate and unequal, three young men – Ivan Kadey, a white Jewish guitarist from Johannesburg, and Gary and Punka Khoza, two Black Shangaan brothers from Soweto – dared to launch the trio National Wake. In a time and place where it was illegal for these young musicians to play or live together, their band and its fans fought back with music. They smashed every law to rebel – and filmed themselves doing so, with remarkable foresight and nerve.
Forty years after National Wake was shut down by South Africa’s apartheid regime, veteran New York music journalist Mirissa Neff embarked on telling their story. Relying on the band’s astonishing archival footage, and audio-only interviews, THIS IS NATIONAL WAKE eschews a talking-heads approach to expertly weave its subjects’ voices into a grainy Super 8 tapestry. The result is a dreamlike immersion into a heady but doomed utopian experiment, whose lasting lessons about imagining an anti-racist world resound as loudly today as it did then. This debut feature, steeped in previously unseen footage of a 1970s anti-racist counterculture that few know existed, reveals a band whose music and memories comprise a profound meditation on how history is lived through art and in our minds.

Age of Rage: The Australian Punk Revolution

Dir. Jennifer Ross. 2022, Australia, 90 min
Trailer YouTube 
When the first wave of punk broke on Australian shores in the 1970s, it was met with a fierce embrace that continues to reverberate today. Adopted and adapted with fearsome intensity by disenfranchised, pre-globalisation Australian kids as a challenge to the isolation and cultural vacuity of mainstream Australia, punk Down Under was a DIY counterculture – a profound, visceral critique of late 20th-century capitalism. Australian punk chose values and agendas that for many have become lifelong, and its revolution full of rage, angst and defiance has evolved. AGE OF RAGE shows that while some still stand at the edges of society, others have re-engaged, bringing their punk values with them.

A Film About Studio Electrophonique

Dir. James Taylor, 2022, UK, 59 min
Trailer You Tube

The golden age of Sheffield pop had its first stirrings in the hollow, death-marked era of Threads, Thatcher and mass redundancy. The cultural landscape was one of dole-nourished musical manifestos and self-assembled synthesisers sent through the post. Pop music pilgrims arriving in Sheffield may struggle to locate its landmark sites. They are unheralded and unmarked, yet still emit a faint looped analogue pulse for those devoted enough to seek them out: the attic room in Lemont Road, Totley where Cabaret Voltaire first assembled, the house on Stanhope Road, Intake where Pulp’s single “Babies” came from, the condemned dead end in Barber Terrace where ABC conjured glamour out of margarine sandwiches and pure imagination. The most secret and sacred of all these signless places, however, is the Ballifield council-estate semi that housed Studio Electrophonique, the home studio owned by Ken Patten: panel beater, fly fisherman, water skier and midwife at the birth of electronic music in the North.

Now vacant, 32 Handsworth Grange Crescent, across from The Everest pub, is where the first recordings were made for early incarnations of the bands that became The Human League, ABC, Heaven 17, Def Leppard, Clock DVA and Pulp. Not to mention the more esoteric and rarer sounds of The Electric Armpits, The Naughtiest Girl Was a Monitor and Systematic Annex, whose track “Death Trades” was recorded at Ken’s in 1984 yet failed to arouse the interest of those compiling Now That’s What I Call Music 4. Ken’s work never attracted the attention of the masses and, by the time the landmark albums Dare and Lexicon of Love started to shift units, the bands had all bought yachts – or at least gold lamé suits – and Ken had shifted back to his own unit, knocking out dents in a garage beneath the Wicker Arches.

Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande

Dir. Tim Mackenzie-Smith. 2022, UK, 89 min
Trailer  YouTube

The British group Cymande are unsung heroes: the first British band to play at Harlem’s legendary Apollo, their message of peace, love and funk sailed far beyond Britain’s shores and helped shape music for five decades. Long after they stopped playing in the 1970s, their innovative jazz-rock-funk music played on, with tracks including the iconic ‘Bra’ sampled by the likes of De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, the Sugarhill Gang, MC Solaar and the Fugees, so they returned to play some more. In GETTING IT BACK, their story is told on screen for the first time, with tributes from a galaxy of musicians and producers influenced and enthralled by their music, including Mark Ronson, Norman Jay, Jazzie B, DJ Maseo of De la Soul, Jim James and Louie Vega.

TRAMPS! The Death Of Punk, The New Romantics, The Art Of Survival

Dir. Kevin Hegge, Canada, 2022,104 min
Trailer – N/A

Rising from the nihilistic ashes of the punk movement in the late 1970s, a fresh crowd of flamboyant fashionistas and irreverent misfits who would later be christened the New Romantics began to materialise on the streets of London. TRAMPS! is a feature-length documentary that looks at how an onslaught of art students arriving in the city in the 1980s resulted in a unique cross-fertilisation of queer culture, visual and performance art, fashion, music and film, and a flourishing of radical, subversive creative output.

Repositioning the New Romantics as an art movement rather than an exclusively pop-cultural one, and foregrounding the LGBTQIA+ stories at its core, TRAMPS! traces a genealogy of like-minded artists that predated the era, such as the influential Derek Jarman, and illustrates how they laid the foundations for the creative subcultures that followed. The film’s focus on the defiance and daring, glitter and grit of groundbreaking figures such as Philip Sallon, Judy Blame, Princess Julia, Scarlett Cannon, John Maybury, Mark Moore and Duggie Fields brings a bold and brilliant creative moment to light, and rewrites what we think we know about the era.

Four decades on, the creative resilience described by the generation-spanning subjects of TRAMPS! are a direct message of hope to artists at a time when it’s needed most.

Rewind and Play: Thelonious Monk

Dir. Alain Gomis, 2022, France, 65 min
Trailer NA
It’s 1969, and jazz genius Thelonious Monk is on the loose on French TV – and takes down an arrogant journalist with his cosmic attitude. REWIND AND PLAY is a minimalist and darkly witty treasure trove of a film about our man Monk.

Before a concert in Paris in December 1969, Thelonious Monk appears on the programme Jazz Portrait on French television; this is the rich and at times bizarre material that filmmaker Alan Gomis draws on in his documentary. The situation falters from the start when the host doesn’t find Monk’s answers adequate, and a bizarre battle of wills ensues. In one corner: a polite, strained-smiling-but-tired Monk, who looks like he’s landed on another planet. In the other corner: a jazz-savvy yet tone-deaf white interviewer who comes across as deluded and arrogant. Luckily, Monk also gets to play his piano.

SHORTS PROGRAMME

All UK Premieres:

Fifty Days

Dir. Holly May Morrison, Marie Naffah, UK, 2022, 11min

FIFTY DAYS follows musician Marie Naffah through her 2021 challenge to perform 50 gigs in 50 days. When concerts and festivals seemed all but impossible, Marie found a way to bring live music safely back to people. Filmed and directed by creative collaborator Holly Morrison, the film epitomises the relief so many people felt at the long-awaited return of live music. It is a cinematic reminder of the kindness of strangers, the romance of train travel and our intrinsic need for human connection.

Linnea’s Brain

Dir. Al Crockett, US, 2021, 5min

A documentary profile of Linnea Herzog, and what it means to be both an artist and a scientist. The film is a look at a person whose life is tied to two seemingly conflicting disciplines and cultures: science and art. By looking a little deeper at what these aspects of Linnea’s life mean to her, we have an opportunity to better understand the threads connecting them. By juxtaposing visuals and sounds from seemingly different aspects of Linnea’s life, LINNEA’s BRAIN aims to challenge the notions the audience may have of the dissimilarity between artists and scientists.

Sonic Reverbs

Dir. Sarnt Utamachote, Germany, 2021, 21min

What does it mean to listen while being vulnerable? Taking the concept “music as a gift”, four Berlin-based migrant queer musicians surprised close friends or relatives with a special song, which then triggered a moment of deep appreciation between them. This film documents the process of them opening up, becoming vulnerable and letting go – with conversations about their marginalised kinship, trust, fluidity and fragility of life. Together they find comfort and “reverberations” of their sounds in each other.

A Man For Our Time

Dir. Lewis William Wilkinson, UK, 2022, 4min

An animated interview piece with lo-fi pop pioneer Martin Newell of The Cleaners From Venus. Martin discusses his ethos, the music industry and the anachronist nature of his work, taking on the guise of a time traveller traversing his 40-plus-year career.

The Personal is Political

Dir. Carol Harrison, UK, 2020, 9min
A musical animated memoir set in London 1968-73; a reflection and recreation of a time when protest and resistance were part of everyday life. What was personal became politicised when people came together to fight for their rights.
The actions of students, the women’s movement, gay liberation, squatters and claimants’ unions, provide a documentary framework for personal memories, from a child’s point of view. The political message is traced through various means of communication; hand-drawn comics, screen-printed posters, leaflets, placards, papers, pamphlets and the underground press. THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL is a sensory journey through the textures, colours and sounds of childhood, re-constructed.

Face The Music: The Tunisia88 Story

Dir. Vladislav Lakov, Bulgaria, 2022, 29min

Among the mountains, coasts and deserts of Tunisia, the sounds of guitars, ouds and violins are transforming Tunisian youth. For the past seven years, the project Tunisia88 has grown from one man with a piano to 586 musical clubs – one in every public high school in the country. FACE THE MUSIC follows Ahmed, Nejia, Nacim and Saja as they prepare for 2021’s gala concert in the nation’s capital city Tunis.

Hit Like a Woman

Dir. Tamarzee Nooze, Canada, 2021, 13min

A playful mix of screen in screen, montage, animation and traditional documentary techniques that paints a musical portrait of Sarah Thawer, the Toronto-born, self-taught, Juno Award-nominated, ass-kicking drummer brought to you by the forces of intergenerational feminism and international music.

Music for the Deaf

Dir. Chloé Aknine, France, 2021, 14min
At first glance, the idea of music for the deaf may seem paradoxical. However, music is indeed an integral part of deaf people’s lives, although perhaps not in the way we imagine. For the musicologist Sylvain Brétéché, whose thesis deals with the deaf musical experience, deafness is not defined as a deficiency but as another way of “being in the world”.
Leaving behind the audio-centric norm of music and overcoming prejudices about what was thought possible, the deaf community has developed a variety of musical expressions based on the vibratory aspect of sound as well as on the synergy between image and music, an aspect that is at the centre of the work of composer and musicologist Jean-Pierre Moreau. As we explore both researchers’ studies and meet the deaf bassist Lily Regnault as well as the si\gn singers Igor Casas and Marie Lemot, MUSIC FOR THE DEAF reveals a new definition of music: a profound and transcendent form of expression involving all senses that can break down barriers between deaf and hearing people.

You Have Failed As Audience
Dir. WIZ Andrew John Whinston, USA/UK, 2021, 15min

At the dawn of the digital age, dirt metal prophet Noah Ray delivers an incandescent sermon on life lived without shackles or compromise. Through this recently rediscovered footage from 15 years ago in Alabama and Georgia, and with a soundtrack of punishing beauty from Music Hates You, Ray preaches an impassioned and prescient testimony that could not be more timely and compelling in our current online epoch.

About Doc’n Roll Film Festival:

Doc’n Roll is a female-led film agency that platforms and champions marginal voices in the music industry; we are passionate about DIY spirit, independent film and music of all genres. Our mission is to celebrate music subcultures by providing a unique platform to support creative, compelling and unforgettable documentaries that celebrate the performers, labels, scenes and stories. Projects include Doc’n Roll Film Festival, the UK’s annual music documentary festival, as well as one-off London premieres, curated seasons, and 13 UK regional city editions in Birkenhead, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Exeter, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield.

They present their audience with the opportunity to watch these films as they were designed to be watched – LOUD.

Doc’n Roll Film Fest was launched in 2014 to finally show some love to the many excellent under-the-radar music films that are largely ignored by risk-averse film programmers. Post-screening Q&As, DJ sets and live music themed on the films add to the overall cinematic experience.

​​About the BFI:

BFI is a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image. Their mission is:
● To support creativity and actively seek out the next generation of UK storytellers
● To grow and care for the BFI National Archive, the world’s largest film and television archive
● To offer the widest range of UK and international moving image culture through our programmes and festivals – delivered online and in venue
● To use their knowledge to educate and deepen public appreciation and understanding
● To work with Government and industry to ensure the continued growth of the UK’s screen industries

Founded in 1933, the BFI is a registered charity governed by Royal Charter.
The BFI Board of Governors is chaired by Tim Richards.

The BFI Audience Fund invests £5.6m of National Lottery funding each year to expand access and encourage greater enjoyment of cinema by connecting audiences with great films – in venues, at events and online. BFI does this by supporting:

· leading exhibition organisations, including film festivals, to deliver culturally rich and nationally significant programmes and events on a year round basis
· projects which help exhibitors and distributors bring the best of UK and international cinema to audiences across the UK through events, distribution releases, multiplatform distribution proposals, touring film programmes and more
· initiatives that address under-representation and are innovating audience development

bfi.org.uk/audience-fund

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