REVELATION PERTH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL – 100% ROCK’s TOP MUSIC PICKS

Shane | 3 July 2019 | Reply

REVELATION PERTH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL – 100% ROCK’s TOP MUSIC PICKS

By Shane Pinnegar

Our lovely sponsors, The Revelation Perth International Film Festival, have a superb line-up of movies and seminars for you to enjoy this month.

Here’s our pick of the top music-related flicks to spend your time with.

First up, a rare screening of The Juniper Tree. Not a music movie per se, but it does star quirky popstar Bjork, aged just 21 at the time, and the story goes that she immersed in the character of Margit in the most method way. Based on an Icelandic fairytale which was amongst the stories collected by The Brothers Grimm, and filmed in stark black and white, it’s apparently a dark and highly original drama featuring witchcraft, which was filmed in 1986, financial problems meant The Juniper Tree wasn’t released until 1990, and never reached a wide audience. Definitely on our ‘must see’ list on the big screen. Screening Tuesday, 9 July at 8:30pm and Sunday, 14 July at 1:45pm, both at Luna Leederville.

Rudeboy – The Story Of Trojan Records is a wonderful half documentary, half docudrama tale about how a little record label formed in London in 1968 managed to facilitate the spread of Jamaican dancehall, ska and reggae music first to the West Indian expat community, then to the world. Screening Saturday, 6 July at 4:20pm and Thursday, 11 July at 9pm at Luna Leederville, and Saturday, 13 July at 2pm at Luna SX in Fremantle.

Miles Davis: Birth Of The Cool uses text from Davis’ autobiography to illuminate his almost scientific search for new direction for jazz music, to enormous success as a legend of the form, but also the devastating personal loss he felt through addiction and as a result of putting music above all else in his life. Screening Sunday, 7 July at 3:20pm at Luna Leederville.

Local demi-legends Kerb are the subject of Maybe It’s Luck, documenting the arduous task of reforming a punk rock band who disbanded in 1999 and are now scattered around the world. Press materials say that the film “is a cracker from start to finish as it pops and fizzes… that’ll have you in some way admiring the gumption, ambition and innocence in what it takes to get the band back together.” Screening Wednesday, 17 July at Luna Leederville.

We don’t see a lot of documentaries about luthiers, so we’re looking forward to Carmine Street Guitars, which tells the story of Rick Kelly and his apprentice Cindy Hulej as they lovingly craft beautiful instruments in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village. Featuring a revolving door of celeb muso customers including Jim Jarmusch, Lenny Kaye, Charlie Sexton and more, this film is billed as “a gentle celebration of artistic creativity, community, and guitar playing.” Sounds perfect. Carmine Street Guitars screens Saturday, 6 July at 2:20pm, Wednesday, 10 July at 4:30pm and Sunday, 14 July at 3:15pm at Luna Leederville, and Sunday, 7 July at 2pm at Luna SX in Fremantle.

The creation of The Hope Six Demolition Project, PJ Harvey’s most recent album, is captured by filmmaker Seamus Murphy in the documentary A Dog Called Money. Murphy follows Harvey’s search for inspiration through Afghanistan, Kosovo and Washington DC, then the recording project which became its own work of art, taking place behind one-way glass enabling the public to observe the process. The result promises to be a fascinating exploration of this unique artist’s creativity. A Dog Called Money screens Tuesday, 9 July at 6:30pm at Luna SX in Fremantle, and Wednesday, 10 July and Monday, 15 July, both at 8:30pm at Luna Leederville.

One of the people who made the Sixties what they were, David Crosby, gets the exhaustive doco treatment in David Crosby: Remember My Name. The talented singer/songwriter was at the epicentre of the counter-culture movement, heavily involved in political change, and at the forefront of exploration of the changing social attitudes to sex and drugs while leading The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash (and sometimes Young). If you only see one music film at this year’s Rev, this would be my recommendation. Screens Tuesday, 9 July at 6:30pm and Thursday, 11 July at 2pm at Lune Leederville, and Saturday, 13 July at 4pm in Fremantle at Luna SX.

For more information about all the films screening at Rev from tomorrow, 4 July, 2019, and full screening schedules, head to https://www.revelationfilmfest.org/