MUSIC docs

Before Oprah, before Arsenio, there was Mr. SOUL. Ellis Haizlip ensures that the Revolution would be televised with "SOUL!," America's first "Black Tonight Show." From 1968 to 1973, the public-television variety show SOUL!, guided by enigmatic producer and host Ellis Haizlip, offered an unfiltered, uncompromising celebration of Black literature, poetry, music, and politics--voices that had few other options for national exposure, and, as a result, found the program an improbable place to call home. The series was among the first to provide expanded images of African Americans on television, shifting the gaze from inner-city poverty and violence to the vibrancy of the Black Arts Movement. With participants' recollections and illuminating archival clips, Mr. SOUL captures a critical moment in culture whose impact continues to resonate, and an unsung hero whose voice we need now more than ever, to restore the SOUL of a nation.

The story of the notorious 1970s New York City nightclub.

A revelatory, thrilling and emotional journey behind the scenes of Blue Note Records, the pioneering label that gave voice to some of the finest jazz artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The evolution of electronic music and its many genres. How the wide range of styles and scenes formed through experimentations on sound formation.

A portrait of genius music composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Writer James Baldwin tells the story of race in modern America with his unfinished novel, Remember This House.

MC and journalist Shad Kabango meets with Hip-Hop's biggest stars to retrace how Hip-Hop became the world's most popular music, but realizes that Hip-Hop's true legacy is something much more profound.

The Harlem Cultural Festival, also known as "Black Woodstock", was a series of music concerts held in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City during the summer of 1969 to celebrate African American music and culture and to promote the continued politics of Black pride.

Documentary about the legendary 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival which celebrated African-American music and culture and promoted Black pride and unity.

Finding the Funk is a road trip in search of the past, present and future of Funk music. Starting with Funk's roots in Jazz and the James Brown bands of the '60s we travel to the Bay Area to celebrate Sly & the Family Stone, then to Dayton the birthplace of so many of Funk's originators, then onto Detroit where from the ashes of Motown, P-Funk's Mothership arose, and then to LA where a new crop of musicians are creating their own Funk history. On our journey into Funk, we talk to legends Sly Stone, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Nona Hendryx, Maceo Parker, Bernie Worrell, and Steve Arrington and their descendants Mike D, D'Angelo, Sheila E, Shock G and Sade's Stuart Matthewman. Narrated by Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson of the Roots.

Elektro Moskva is an essayistic documentary about the Soviet electronic age and its legacy. The story begins with the inventor of the world's first electronic instrument, Leon Theremin, unveiling the KGB's huge pile of fascinating devices, some of which were musical. They all came into existence as a by-product of a rampant defense industry. Nowadays, those aged and abandoned 'musical coffins', as solidly made as a Kalashnikov, are being recycled and reinterpreted by the post-Soviet generations of musicians, sound collectors and circuit benders. The story of the Soviet synthesizers as an allegory to the everyday life under the Soviet system: nothing works, but you have to make the best out of it. An electronic fairy tale about the inventive spirit of the free mind inside the iron curtain- and beyond.

Follows the story of electronic music's female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today.

A look at the history and evolution of the free jazz movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1939, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff founded the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records in New York. This is the story of two friends, united by a passionate love for jazz, and their belief in equality and freedom for every person.

In 1976, Tony Wilson sets up Factory Records and brings Manchester's music to the world.

In an effort to bring unity and equality to African-Americans, an interstellar traveler and musician lands on earth and duels with an evil overlord for the souls of people.

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, poetry readings, a band rehearsal, interviews, and extensive improvisations. Transferred to HD from the original 16mm film and lovingly restored for the best possible viewing experience.

Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton is a feature-length documentary about avant-garde Los Angeles-based record label Stones Throw Records. The film weaves together rare concert footage, never-before-see archival material, inner-circle home video and photographs and in-depth interviews with the artists who put Stones Throw Records on the map. Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton gives an exclusive look into the label's left-of-center artists, history, culture, and global following. The film features exclusive interviews with Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Common, Questlove, Talib Kweli, Mike D (The Beastie Boys), Tyler the Creator, and many more.

Lee Scratch Perry's Vision of Paradise is a unique project in many ways. It is the life story of the legendary musician, but it is not a biography, it is a fairytale documentary! The director followed Lee Perry for thirteen years and discovered an unbelievable story, a revelation, told about and with one of the major protagonists of contemporary music, the other half of the story that has never been told. The movie can be seen as a guide for how to change the world with music, with a positive attitude, mindset or, as Lee Perry calls it, vibration.

Richie Finestra, a shrewd record executive from New York, tries to promote American Century, his music label, amidst the changing music scene in the 1970s.

Aging Cuban musicians whose talents had been virtually forgotten following Castro's takeover of Cuba, are brought out of retirement by Ry Cooder, who travelled to Havana in order to bring the musicians together, resulting in triumphant performances of extraordinary music, and resurrecting the musicians' careers.

When three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway, the bloody slash that transformed a decade's dreams into disillusionment was immortalized on this film.

A chronological account of the influential late 1970s English rock band.

A profile of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic singer of Joy Division whose personal, professional, and romantic troubles led him to die by suicide at the age of 23.

Queen Elizabeth I travels 400 years into the future to witness the appalling revelation of a dystopian London overrun by corruption and a vicious gang of punk guerrilla girls led by the new Monarch of Punk.