Back To Africa by Othmar Schmiderer. A documentary about some of the crew of Andre Heller's show Africa!Africa!. The film follows several of the artists back to their respective African home countries, interviewing them and their families. We gain an insight into how they grew up and developed their talents. How tough it can be for them to be so far away from their homes and families when touring for several months. I had not seen the show Africa!Africa! and found it a little difficult to follow the film, especially at the beginning–it seems to rely on you having seen the show. (Young@Heart which I saw on Tuesday does a better job at that.) However, it was nice to gain some insight into the artist's origins, see their great performances and listen to beautiful music.
Dirty Hands: The Art And Crimes Of David Choe by Harry Kim. Both artist (David Choe) and director were at the screening and Harry Kim's introduction "I think you guys don't know what you're in for" aptly summed it up. I really didn't know what I was in for and it was quite disturbing at times. This is a brilliant film about an incredibly talented by quite strange guy from Los Angeles who spends most of his time (or so it seems in the film) drawing naked women in disagreeable positions, upsetting feminist groups and so on. He also does very cool graffiti and maybe not so cool shop lifting, in this case upsetting police. Watching the film, I really started to like this guy when he recalls getting sent to prison in Japan. He comes back after 3 months with some legendary soy sauce drawings. (And his personality seems changed forever, too?). This is really a must-see so I wont give away too much.
This is funny. Somewhere in our ticket buying rush we ended up with La Matinee (about an Uruguayan carnival group) instead of La Maison (about a French father of three). Never mind. This film by Sebastián Bednarik tells the story of a group of carnival choir singers who are reunited after 20 years to play in the Uruguayan carnival scene again. They perform what's called a 'murga' (noise) which is a chorus that recites social and political themes with percussion accompaniment. They all wear make up and dress up, too. This documentary gives a rare insight into the lives of these men, all together real characters.
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