News

February––particularly its third week––is all about romance. Accordingly the Criterion Channel got creative with their monthly programming and, in a few weeks, will debut Interdimensional Romance, a series of films wherein “passion conquers time and space, age and memory, and even death and the afterlife.” For every title you might’ve guessed there’s a wilder companion: Alan Rudolph’s Made In Heaven, Soderbergh’s remake, and Resnais’ Love Unto Death. Mostly I’m excited to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, a likely essential viewing before Megalopolis.

February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...

Rolling Stone just published its list of the 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time. But along with giving you our picks, we also reached out to artists from throughout the dance-music world to get their favorite tracks, too, along with commentary for each. From disco queen Gloria Gaynor to Detroit techno legend Derrick May, these people have been moving crowds for decades. This is the music that moved them. Ellen Allien

Ellen Allien is a German electronic musician and producer, and the founder of the techno label BPitch Control.

Kraftwerk,...

James Murphy, Flying Lotus, Carl Craig, Skrillex, 2 Chainz and Maya Jane Coles are among the artists set to perform at Detroit’s Movement Festival. Held at Hart Plaza over Memorial Day Weekend, May 28-30, this year’s dance music extravaganza will feature more than 100 acts. Tickets are available now. Typically held annually in downtown Detroit, the fest marks its return for the first time since 2019, with its 2020 and 2021 editions canceled due to the pandemic.

Kevin Saunderson (appearing under his alias E-Dancer), Jon Hopkins, the Martinez Brothers, Duck Sauce, and...

Gabin Rivoire’s documentary “Laurent Garnier: Off the Record,” which explores the origins and rise of techno music through the eyes of one of its pioneers, has sold to multiple territories. The film screens on Saturday at both the Edinburgh and Karlovy Vary film festivals.

The documentary has been acquired in France by Condor Distribution, in Italy by Wanted Cinema, in Spain by Filmin, in Scandinavia by Njutafilms, in Russia by Beat Films, in Switzerland by Rts, and for Ex-Yugoslavia by McF Megacom. Anton, who co-financed and executive produced the film, is handling worldwide sales and is in discussion on closing other key territories.

Speaking exclusively to Variety prior to the film’s world premiere in May at Cph:dox festival in Copenhagen, DJ and music producer Garnier said that he had chosen Rivoire to helm the project because the filmmaker was able to capture the passion Garnier felt about dance music.

Gabin Rivoire’s documentary “Laurent Garnier: Off the Record,” which explores the origins and rise of techno music through the eyes of one of its pioneers, is set to world premiere on May 7 in front of a live audience at the Cph:dox festival in Copenhagen. Anton, which is handling world sales, has released its first official trailer exclusively to Variety. Garnier, one of the world’s leading DJs and a well-respected music producer, talks to Variety from his home in France, which is still in lockdown, preventing him from traveling to the premiere, about how the film evolved, his love of techno, and how the pandemic caused him to stop listening to techno music for the first time in more than 30 years.

Garnier had been approached a few times by people wanting to make a documentary about his life, but wanted to “open the doors and work in trust” with a filmmaker,...

These days, Ice-t‘s résumé reads like a long biblical scroll. He’s one of the original pioneers of gangsta rap via seminal releases like “6 in the Mornin,‘” one of the greatest hip-hop songs of all time. He’s hosted and produced multiple TV shows and documentary films, including The Art of Rap and the VH1 documentary Planet Rock: The Story of Hip-Hop and the Crack Generation. That’s on top of a hefty acting filmography, which includes starring roles in films like New Jack City; his now-defunct reality TV series Ice Loves Coco,...

Jeff Mills is known to dance music aficionados for his work in the Detroit techno group Underground Resistance and solo releases like 1996’s Live at the Liquid Room, Tokyo. But on his new project Tomorrow Comes the Harvest, he finds common cause with Tony Allen, the legendary drummer whose playing defined the records of Fela Kuti and the sound of Afrobeat. The album, which was mostly worked out live in the studio, is a slippery combination of old-school percussion and chattering electronics, full of long vamps, sudden turns and Allen’s inimitable propulsion.

There’s a simple, age-old idea behind Tomorrow Comes the Harvest: Throw two luminaries from different worlds into the studio, roll tape, see what happens.

In one corner, find Jeff Mills, whose credentials are unimpeachable — he co-founded Underground Resistance, the future-facing electronic Detroit outfit that created reams of charged, jazz-friendly techno and several house-leaning dancefloor classics. In the other, meet Tony Allen, the longtime drummer for Nigerian star Fela Kuti, who helped invent the commanding, endlessly adaptable afrobeat groove. This is not the first such pairing — for example, Allen played...