News

In his latest podcast/interview, host and screenwriter Stuart Wright talks with director Stuart Swezey about his documentary Desolation Center.

Desolation Center is the previously untold story of a series of early 80s guerrilla music and art performance happenings in Southern California that are recognized to have inspired Burning Man, Lollapalooza and Coachella, collective experiences that have become key elements of popular culture in the 21st century. The feature documentary splices interviews and rare performance footage of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Swans, Redd Kross, Einstürzende Neubauten, Survival Research Laboratories, Savage Republic and more, documenting a time when pushing the boundaries of music, art, and performance felt almost like an unspoken obligation.

NYC premiere is IFC Center 26 February 2020 – inc Q&a w/ Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo & Steve Shelley and dir. Stuart Swezey! Tickets at www.ifccenter.com/films/desolation-center/

UK people can see it via a Doc’N’Roll...

Exclusive: Passion River Films has picked up worldwide digital rights to the desert rock documentary Desolation Center and is planning to launch it later this year.

The film, which has screened at a number of film festivals around the world including Cph: Dox, Indie Lisboa and Sheffield Doc Fest, tells the story of a series of gigs in Southern California that paved the way for corporate festivals such as Burning Man, Lollapalooza and Coachella.

Desolation Center, directed by Stuart Swezey, is the untold story of a series Reagan-era guerrilla desert happenings now that includes performances by bands including Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets and Einstürzende Neubauten. It tells the true story of how the risky, and at times even reckless, actions of a few outsiders can unintentionally lead to seismic cultural shifts. Swezey, the creator and principal organizer of these events, offers up never-before-seen archival video, live audio recordings, and...

In today’s film news roundup, “I Love Lucy” draws nostalgic fans to theaters, “Desolation Center” is set for release and “What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael” and “American Dharma” are sold.

Box Office

Fathom Events reported a Tuesday night showing of “I Love Lucy: A Colorized Celebration” drew more than 60,000 attendees with an estimated $777,645 at 660 North American sites.

The take left the one-night showing in sixth place for the day at the domestic box office. “I Love Lucy: A Colorized Celebration” featured five episodes of “I Love Lucy,” along with a featurette on the colorization of the shows.

The showing took place on Ball’s 108th birthday. Fathom, which is operated by the AMC, Cinemark and Regal chains, said some locations adding showtimes and auditoriums to meet fan demand.

Fathom Events CEO Ray Nutt said, “The incredible performance of ‘I Love Lucy: A Colorized Celebration’ demonstrates the...

"A fascinating glimpse at the emergence of a phenomenon." Check out this rad first trailer for a punk rock doc titled Desolation Center, made by filmmaker Stuart Swezey. The documentary dives into the untold story from the early 1980s about "Reagan-era guerrilla punk and industrial desert happenings in Southern California" that have since become recognized as the experiences that inspired and laundry iconic festivals like Burning Man, Lollapalooza, and Coachella. Featuring interviews and rare performance footage of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Redd Kross, Einstürzende Neubauten, Savage Republic, Survival Research Laboratories, Swans and more. This really does seem like a iconic moment in music culture history to look back on, and they've probably got some wicked stories to tell. Music fanatics don't want to miss this. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Stuart Swezey's doc Desolation Center, direct from YouTube: This doc tells untold story of a series of...

Platform will screen features The Elephant Queen, Hala at Sicilian festival.

The Taormina Film Festival (June 30-July 6) in Sicily will celebrate the first TV series in its 65-year history when Octavia Spencer flies in on behalf of Apple TV+’s forthcoming true-crime drama Truth Be Told.

The series will debut on the Apple TV app this autumn. Series executive producer/star Spencer will attend the Italian festival, where she will receive the Taormina Arte Award and highlight the series, which is inspired by a true-crime novel by Katherine Barber.

Apple will screen two of its films at the festival. Mark Deeble...

Platform will screen features The Elephant Queen, Hala at Sicilian festival.

The Taormina Film Festival (June 30-July 6) in Sicily will celebrate the first TV series in its 65-year history when Octavia Spencer flies in to discuss Apple TV+’s forthcoming true-crime drama Truth Be Told.

The series will debut on the Apple TV app this autumn. Series creator and executive producer/star Spencer will attend the Italian festival, where she will receive the Taormina Arte Award and talk about the series, which is inspired by a true-crime novel by Katherine Barber.

Sicilian festival will screen the first TV series in its 65-year history.

The Taormina Film Festival (June 30-July 6) in Sicily will screen the first TV series in its 65-year history, Apple TV+’s forthcoming drama Truth Be Told.

Apple will offer a first-look at the series, which will debut on the Apple TV app this autumn. Series creator and executive producer/star Octavia Spencer will come to Taormina to present the series, which is inspired by a true-crime novel by Katherine Barber.

Apple will also show preview footage of See starring Alfre Woodard, and The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston,...

One of New York City’s best summertime diversions for cinephiles, Rooftop Films has unveiled its current slate for its 2019 Summer Series, presented by SundanceTV. This year’s series will take place May 17 – August 23, featuring more than 45 outdoor screenings in more than a dozen spectacular outdoor venues, with live music, filmmaker appearances, and special enhanced screenings of the best, new, independent films from around the world.

The series will kick off on Friday, May 17 at Green-Wood Cemetery with This is What We Mean by Short Films, Rooftop’s annual collection of some of the most innovative short films from the past year. The 23rd Summer Series will continue through August with screenings of new indies and festival favorites, including “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” “My Days of Mercy,” “Mickey and the Bear,” “Saint Frances,” “The Sound of Silence,” “Pink Wall,” “Premature,” “Sister Aimee,” and “Greener Grass.”

“Last year, all of us...

Rock doc distributor Monoduo Films has picked up the international rights to guerrilla desert doc Desolation Center.

You can watch the first trailer for the film, which tells the story of a series of gigs in southern California that paved the way for corporate festivals such as Burning Man, Lollapalooza and Coachella, above.

Berlin-based Monoduo Films, which is run by Ben Bassauer, has previously repped films including Milford Graves Full Mantis, which was co-directed by Neil Young, A Band Called Death and Lamb of God doc As The Palaces Burn. It has taken the worldwide rights ahead of the films U.S. premiere at the Slamdance Festival. The film will debut at the Treasure Mountain Inn Ballroom on 25 January.

Desolation Center is the untold story of a series Reagan-era guerrilla desert happenings now that includes performances by bands including Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets and Einstürzende Neubauten. It tells the...

Festival to run in Park City, Utah, from January 25-31.

The Slamdance Film Festival organisers have unveiled the narrative and documentary feature competition line-ups, as well as the new Breakouts section for the festival’s 25th edition in January.

The feature competition programme boasts 18 premieres, including 10 world, four North American, and four Us debuts from an array of global filmmakers hailing from Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Germany, India, Italy, Kenya, Poland, South Africa, and the UK.

All competition films are feature-length directorial debuts with budgets of less than $1m, and without Us distribution. Films in both categories are eligible for the Audience Award,...

Music documentaries are center stage at this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest with the launch of films including Neil Young-directed Milford Graves Full Mantis and Stuart Swezey’s Desolation Center, which opened with a live performance from Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore. It also emerged during the festival that The Fader’s Tyler The Creator-associated online music doc project Summer of ’17 is on the brink of becoming a linear series.

Vice UK’s Head of Music Alex Hoffman, who runs music channel Noisey, Rollo Jackson, the filmmaker behind Stormzy’s doc Gang Signs and Prayer, former Fader creative director Robert Semmer and Jacqui Edenbrow, Head of Video at arts organization Frieze, talked about the future of the format at Music Docs: New Forms and Platform at the Netflix Crucible Studio on Saturday afternoon.

Semmer, who is Head of Content at filmmaker agency Premier, said that platforms are starting to...

The common ancestor of festival extravaganzas like Coachella, Lollapalooza and Burning Man is unveiled in Desolation Center, directed by one of the story’s protagonists, Stuart Swezey. Combining scrappy archival footage, atmospheric black-and-white photos and talking-head material, both old and new, this classically manufactured non-fiction film depicts the chaotic beginnings of a series of semi-impromptu happenings in the Californian desert that combined punk rock, crazy pyrotechnics and performance art. Even for the uninitiated, this offers a fascinating glimpse at the emergence of a phenomenon that was, back then, simultaneously modest and radical, and that has now, in the era of #Beychella,...

The common ancestor of festival extravaganzas like Coachella, Lollapalooza and Burning Man is unveiled in Desolation Center, directed by one of the story’s protagonists, Stuart Swezey. Combining scrappy archival footage, atmospheric black-and-white photos and talking-head material, both old and new, this classically manufactured non-fiction film depicts the chaotic beginnings of a series of semi-impromptu happenings in the Californian desert that combined punk rock, crazy pyrotechnics and performance art. Even for the uninitiated, this offers a fascinating glimpse at the emergence of a phenomenon that was, back then, simultaneously modest and radical, and that has now, in the era of #Beychella,...