Film / News
Filmic film and music fest returns
Back for a fifth year, the annual Filmic collaboration between St George’s, The Watershed and the Colston Hall focuses on the uses of technology in sound and vision. It brings ’90s indie darlings Suede and the great Ron Geesin to town, explores the role of the theremin in movie scores, and presents a unique digital mapping of film and music in Places of Worship.
Filmic kicks off with a celebration of pioneering electronic experimentation in the ‘shed’s April Sunday brunch season. It’s such a good line-up that we’ll even forgive them for failing to include anything by Tangerine Dream, notably those brilliant scores for Near Dark and Thief. Franz Waxman’s early use of electronic sound is showcased in James Whale’s masterpiece, Bride of Frankenstein (April 3). Miklós Rózsa’s deployment of the still-groovy-after-all-these-years theremin is one of the most memorable aspects of Hitchcock’s Spellbound (April 10), alongside Salvador Dali’s dream sequence. There’s more Hitch with the welcome return of The Birds (April 17), which merits inclusion because of Oskar Sala’s electronic Trautonium, a kind of proto-synthesiser. Dull Oscar winner Chariots of Fire (April 24) rounds things off with its rousing Vangelis soundtrack, though who wouldn’t prefer to hear the great Greek’s Blade Runner score or his pioneering, overlooked L’Apocalypse des Animaux?
Connoisseurs of live scores performed to silent classics should form an orderly queue for Arsenal (April 10). Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s 1929 Russian anti-war classic has recently been restored and Bristol’s Guy Bartell of Bronnt Industries Kapital was invited to compose a new score. He’ll be playing it live at the screening. Suede’s new film Night Thoughts gets an outing on May 4, followed by a Q&A with Brett Anderson & co alongside director Roger Sargent. But perhaps most interesting of all is a rare appearance by pioneering ‘sound sculptor’ Ron Geesin (May 8). Best known for his work on Pink Floyd’s chart-topping Atom Heart Mother and his collaboration with Roger Waters on Music from The Body, he’ll be present for a Q&A after a screening of warm new documentary profile An Improvised Life, which features contributions from Pete Townshend, Peter Gabriel, David Gilmour, Robert Wyatt, and Bridget St. John.
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