Film Categories: Sound Art + Music

  • Yum Yum Yum!

    Les Blank marries his passion for spicy, down home food and his love for Cajuns and Creoles in this mouth-watering, exploration of the cooking and other enthusiasms of French-speaking Louisiana. Features tangy music, Marc Savoy, Paul Prudhomme, and other great cooks.

  • Ziveli: Medicine for the Heart!

    This little-known Blank gem is a portrait of the Serbian-American communities of Chicago and California, highlighting their history in this country, their music, dancing and religion.

  • Zum Ditter

    A rare document of amateur sound poet and “stunter” extraordinaire, Allan MacKay, exploiting the greatest name in music – Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799). In this extemporary performance piece, camera and actor develop a tight rapport like two instruments in a jazz band. Nothing is rehearsed except the finale, itself discovered by accident. The narrative structure of the piece establishes a subversive dialetic as bizarre as the filmmaker’s own piano punk-tuations, added later. “Quite interesting – quite interesting indeed.” – Allan McFee, Eclectic Circus, CBC 1979

  • Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins

    In his own words and music, Lightnin’ Hopkins reveals the inspiration for his blues. He sings, jives, ponders. He boogies at an outdoor barbecue and a black rodeo and takes you with him on a homecoming visit to his boyhood home of Centerville, Texas. Blank has captured Lightnin’s blues in their fullest, darkest power. The film reaches “past the impish bluesman himself into the Blues itself, into the red-clay Texas, into hard times, into blackness, into the senses… you begin to understand the reasons why black Texas people might be in love with this land and angry at poverty” (Carmen…

  • Like Mother, Like Daughter

    In 1992, Saskatchewan composer Elizabeth Raum was commissioned by the Regina Symphony Orchestra to write a concerto for her daughter, Erika, a brilliant young violinist. “Like Mother, Like Daughter” explores the working relationship between the composer and the performer, between mother and daughter. Excerpts from the premier performance of the completed concerto, “Faces of Women,” showcases the talents of these two extraordinary women.

  • Kokoro Is for Heart

    This film features a sound composition and performance by poet Gerry Shikatani, and explores the relationships surrounding language, image and sound, set to the backdrop of a gravel pit. “When I got the footage back from the lab, I was disappointed because of the periodic flipping of the image. After screening the footage several times I realised that the malfunctioning camera rendered the filmed-nature, unnatural… and this poses questions: What is nature? What is natural?” – Phil Hoffman

  • Street Musicians & LL Cool J

    A comparison of a day in the life of two different musical artists who both appear on the same street at the same time.

  • Lovely Is Your Name

    A rock video in the laundromat.

  • Bridges-Go-Round

    Manhattan becomes a maypole as its bridges execute a carefree but magical dance. There are two versions of the film on the reel, one with an electronic soundtrack by Louis and Bebe Barron, and one with music by Ted Macero and his group. The director feels that both should be seen, the electronic-sound version first because that sound vitally alters the responses of the viewer.

  • Rock

    Rocker dude takes us on a tour of the prestigious sites of his past gigs, including the local post office, hair cutting salon, and grocery store.