Lisa Cortés’ Sundance opening night documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman.
Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions. In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything.
Starring: Tomoko Kaneda, Rinko Kikuchi, Lu Ningjuan, Taro Yabe, Yûya Yagira
The seven short films making up Genius Party couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration.
Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of Mind Game and Cat Soup fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with Happy Machine, his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier Deathtic 4, meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s Limit Cycle conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s Doorbell and Baby Blue by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with Shanghai Dragon, takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
Starring: Shintarô Sakamoto, Ren Komai, Tomoya Maeno, Tateto Serizawa, Kami Hiraiwa, Naoto Takenaka
When you’re a bored teenager looking for thrills, sometimes the only thing you can turn to is rock ‘n roll. Having no skill, money, or even a full set of drums, a feared trio of high school delinquents nevertheless decide they are destined for musical glory in a quest to impress their only friend Aya, avoid a rival gang, and – – most importantly — jam out. Animated almost entirely by director Kenji Iwaisawa, and featuring a lead performance by Japanese alt-rock legend Shintaro Sakamoto, On-Gaku: Our Sound brings its own sound and vision to the Hiroyuki Ohashi manga from which it was adapted. With pitch-perfect deadpan humor, the film presents a highly original take on the beloved slacker comedy: a lo-fi buddy film with a blaring musical finale that will leave you wanting an immediate encore.
Screening on VHS! METAL!! 🤘
Recorded live on April 3, 1985 at Studio 54 in New York. Live footage and interviews with Slayer, Venom & Exodus. Venom’s live clips are from other videos because Mantas had chickenpox.
Followed by a panel discussion and an after party in Lo-Res with an all vinyl metal set by DJ Horror Boobs
Starring: Klaus Kinski, Ruy Guerra, Helena Rojo, Cecilia Rivera
Featuring a Live Sound Cinema score by Reel Orchestrette
Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), a ruthless Spanish conquistador, vies for power while part of an expedition in Peru to find El Dorado, the mythical seven cities of gold. Accompanied by his daughter, Flores (Cecilia Rivera), Aguirre faces off against his superior, Don Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerra), and grows increasingly volatile after seizing control of the group. As Aguirre presses deeper into the Amazonian jungle, he descends further into madness.
Starring: Linnea Quigley, C. Courtney Joyner, Kurt Levee, Nova Sheppard, Emilie Jo Tisdale
Considered a ‘lost’ Linnea Quigley movie, Scream Queen is not only a solid 1990s Shot-on-Video slasher, but also takes swift jabs at the independent horror movie scene of the time. Linnea stars as horror star Malicia Tombs, who mysteriously dies after leaving the set of her latest, now unfinished, low budget shocker. Soon, an unseen masked killer is chopping and hacking his/her way through the cast and crew as punishment for Tomb’s death – leaving a bloody trail of revenge. This super obscurity was shot in 1998 by indy horror stalwart Brad Sykes, and finally finished in 2002.
Hosted by Matt Desiderio of Horror Boobs with free giveaways of Blu-rays, DVDs and collectibles. Followed by an after party in Lo-Res where Desiderio will DJ an all-vinyl set.
Starring: Carol Carr, Melissa Moore, Nikki Riggins, Jesse Raye
Donald Farmer’s Scream Dream is both the perfect example of a regional Shot-On-Video film, and one of the best heavy metal horror movies of all time, made during the height of 1980s ‘Satanic Panic’ in the USA.
When frontwoman Michelle Shocked is fired from her band for bad press related to Satanic rumors, she proves everyone right by transforming into a bloodthirsty demon who embarks on a spree of killing and possession. Scream Dream overflows with rubber monster action, gore-drenched murders, unisex teased hair and more bar band metal music than you can shake a studded wristband at.
Hosted by Matt Desiderio of Horror Boobs with free giveaways of Blu-rays, DVDs and collectibles. Followed by an after party in Lo-Res where Desiderio will DJ an all-vinyl set.
Starring: Bill White, Ed Hubbard, Wendy Bednarz, Laura Mclauchlin, Mick McCleery
A pair of paranormal investigators are making their nightly rounds on the seedy streets of New York City when they encounter a group of party-hopping girls looking for a warehouse rave – who have also just accidentally opened a portal to hell. What follows is a night of practical effects monster mayhem as the group try to save themselves, and the entire planet, from a demonic invasion. From prolific 1990s Shot-On-Video writer, producer, director Kevin J. Lindenmuth.
Hosted by Matt Desiderio of Horror Boobs with free giveaways of Blu-rays, DVDs and collectibles. Followed by an after party in Lo-Res where Desiderio will DJ an all-vinyl set.
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…
Followed by an after party in Lo-Res with a DJ set by Qool DJ Marv
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
There was no one like the American singer Willy DeVille. From CBGB Latin punk to New Orleans soul singer to the premiere voice of American roots music on the continent of Europe for three decades, he was arguably the most original, most romantic artist of his time, writing and performing the Academy Award-nominated theme to the movie The Princess Bride. No one inhabited as many musical styles and personas, and everything about him was a work of art.
DeVille sold over a million records and was deeply respected by his peers, from Ben E. King to Bob Dylan, for peerless playing and songs that were anthems to the heartbroken and the downtrodden. Yet almost no one knows anything about him, where he came from or who he loved. How could he fly under the radar for 35 years yet leave so much we do know in his path? That is the mystery of Willy DeVille.
Followed by an after party in Tree Lounge with an all 45 DJ set by Josh Styles
