This month’s selection of films explores music as an insight into places, people and politics, from inner Nottingham, via a journey from Sri Lankan poverty to superstardom, to the backyards, bars and boroughs of Melbourne’s inner north.
Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery
While origin stories are part of almost every biographic documentary, what makes Julia Zemiro’s television series so successful is the breadth of her guests and the way her easygoing personality enables their candour, with a focus on pivotal personal moments rather than key career milestones. Zemiro tours childhood homes, schools and old haunts with comedians, musicians, journalists and sportspeople.
Now Sound: Melbourne's Listening
By the mid 2010s, Melbourne had grown to become one of the world’s live music capitals, with a wealth of bands, artists, record labels, venues, radio stations and festivals forming a thriving and diverse community. But rapid gentrification and stringent regulations over noise have meant musicians, venues and punters have had to come together and fight for the viability of live music. Courtney Barnett, Jen Cloher, Totally Mild and Sui Zhen feature in this energetic account of a scene thriving even as it faces suffocation.
Ryuchi Sakamoto: Coda
Since arriving on the scene as a prodigiously talented composer with Japanese electropop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuchi Sakamoto has been difficult to categorise. Stephen Nomura Schibl’s documentary follows Sakamoto’s career from ’70s stardom to Oscar wins for film scores in the ’80s to his most recent work as a composer and anti-nuclear activist inspired by global crises.
Bunch of Kunst: A Film About Sleaford Mods
Described by Iggy Pop as “The world’s greatest rock and roll band”, Nottingham duo Sleaford Mods rail against the complacency and cruelty of modern Britain. Director Christine Franz follows the band from their punk-rap roots to unlikely later-in-life international success, with audiences growing bigger even as their stagecraft remains limited to one microphone and a laptop perched on a milk crate.
Matangi / Maya / M.I.A.
Steve Loveridge’s sprawling and chaotic account of the rise of British-Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. is a Sundance Festival–winning testimony to the power of music and the unfailing spirit of the daughter of a Tamil resistance fighter. Loveridge’s powerful anti-hagiography shows the combative vitality that fuels one of modern music’s most fascinating artists.
