Archive
Previous Screenings & Events:
2.3.10 – TCBFF and Sound Unseen presents “STILL BILL”, a touching portrait of soul legend Bill Withers
Sound Unseen is proud to honor Black History month with this screening of STILL BILL, the fantastic new documentary on legendary soul singer Bill Withers. We are excited to present this much acclaimed documentary to Twin Cities audiences, having previously screened at SXSW and Silverdocs, among other fests. This event is presented with the Twin Cities Black Film Festival and B-Side Entertainment. This is an intimate venue and a limited number of tickets available, please purchase in advance and arrive early to confirm a seat.
Date: Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 2010 @ 7:30 PM
Venue info: TRYLON MICROCINEMA
Partner Websites: http://www.tcbff.com & http://www.bside.com
Still Bill synopsis:
Directors: Damani Baker, Alex Vlack, USA, 2009, 78 minutes, DVD
STILL BILL is an intimate portrait of soul legend Bill Withers, best known for his classics “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean On Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Grandma’s Hands,” and “Just the Two of Us.” With his soulful delivery and warm, heartfelt sincerity, Withers has written the songs that have – and always will – resonate deeply within the fabric of our times.
Filmmakers Damani Baker and Alex Vlack follow Withers and offer a unique and rare look inside the world of this fascinating man. Through concert footage, journeys to his birthplace, interviews with music legends, his family and closest friends, STILL BILL presents the story of an artist who has written some of the most beloved songs in our time and who truly understands the heart and soul of a man.
“Still Bill is loaded with rarely seen performances and photography from the 70s and 80s, but it’s not the archival footage or even the live performances from the 2008 Tribute show (remarkable as they are) that make this film so moving and inspiring. It’s the current material following Withers in his daily life that is sure to surprise and rivet audiences.” J. Hayes, Examiner
For more information visit: www.stillbillthemovie.com
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1.14.10 – Sound Unseen sponsors a FREE screening of “CRAZYHEART”
Sound Unseen is proud to sponsor the FREE screening of CRAZY HEART at the Lagoon Theater in Uptown. Fox Searchlight’s film which stars Jeff Bridges as “a washed-up, alcoholic country singer who gets his life back on track thanks to a reporter-type (Maggie Gyllenhaal).” There are rumors that Bridges will be a contender for Best Actor with his performance. And lets not forget that Robert Duval and Colin Farrell round out the cast.
To reserve your seats, please email: crazyheartmn@gmail.com and put “SOUND UNSEEN” in the subject line!
Seating is limited and not guaranteed; early arrival recommended.
Date: Thursday, January 14th, 2009
Time: 7:30 PM
Venue: The Lagoon Theater
Movie Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/crazyheart/
Film Synopsis: Four-time Academy Award® nominee Jeff Bridges stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film CRAZY HEART from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Golden Globe® nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart.
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1.6.10 – Sound Unseen and KFAI present “JOHNNY CASH: LIVE AT SAN QUENTIN”
Johnny says F*** The Man!
Johnny says F*** The Man!
A Rare Screening of
JOHNNY CASH: LIVE AT SAN QUENTIN
(Michael Darlow, 1969, UK, DVD, 60 min)
When: Weds. Jan. 6
Time: 7:30 PM & 9:00 PM
Price: $8
Venue: Trylon Microcinema
Buy Tickets!
Legendary country singer Johnny Cash gave one of the most stellar shows of his career at San Quentin Prison in 1969, resulting in his first number one album on the pop charts. This documentary features songs from the unforgettable show as well as moments of lively interaction between Cash and his prisoner audience.
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12.02.09: Sound Unseen Presents “La France”
Sound Unseen is pleased to kick off our monthly screening series with the MN premiere of Serge Bozon’s acclaimed French film, La France at the TRYLON.
Time: 7:30 PM
Venue: The TRYLON
Film Synopsis:
LA FRANCE by Serge Bozon 2007, 102 minutes, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. OFFICIAL SELECTION, CANNES FILM FESTIVAL Starring Sylvie Testud and Pascale Greggory. One of the most genuinely peculiar movies to emerge in many a moon, LA FRANCE is a bizarre but beautiful brew, equal parts gender-bending drama, war-film, romantic odyssey, and anachronistic folk-musical. Determined to find her husband, who has vanished into the storm of WWI, Camille (Testud) disguises herself as a man and sets off into the countryside, where she soon falls in with a band of wandering soldiers (equipped with more than the usual instruments of war) who are burdened with a secret of their own. Eschewing realism for an allegorical, fable-like tone, LA FRANCE is note-perfect, a soulful, mysterious, and poetic voyage through a landscape that is both war-torn and enchanted. Like the songs that punctuate the narrative, LA FRANCE is melancholy, strange and lovely.
“Audacious in concept but superbly controlled in execution, what might easily have seemed a gender-bending stunt instead registers as a highly sensitive, inspired approach to the subject of men – and one woman – confronting the dehumanizing effects of war.” –Scott Foundas, VARIETY “
A WWI troop movie with the soul of a troubled nation and the heart (and tune!) of a Beach Boys album…. Bozon’s film channels the hooks and melodies of ’60s sunshine pop while evoking the frontline grit of Fuller and the formal austerity of Bresson – a work of startling originality and charm.” –Chi-hui Yang, SFIFFI
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10.29.09: The Southern Theater and Sound Unseen Presents “THE BQE”
Osso & Sufjan Stevens’ The BQE
Osso to perform string arrangements of Sufjan Stevens’ Enjoy Your Rabbit
Followed by film screening of Stevens’ 2007 BAM commission The BQE
Opening set by DM Stith
October 29, 2009
“Osso’s readings take Mr. Stevens’ music to new places…” – The New York Times
“The BQE is Mr. Stevens’ equivalent of the Godfrey Reggio-Philip Glass film collaboration Koyaanisqatsi: a skeptical view of development that eventually falls in love with sheer motion.” – The New York Times
“…performance of transcendent, spectral majesty.” – Esquire Magazine on the music of DM Stith; “…music that demands attention…impressively dense and mature work.” – Pitchfork.com
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – String quartet with a modernist pulse, members of the New York- and Berlin-based Osso have built dramatic arrangements in collaboration with an array of artists and genres, including Jay-Z, Alice and Ravi Coltrane, The New Pornographers, Antony and the Johnsons, The Polyphonic Spree, The National, Devotchka and Kanye West. Their interpretation of Sufjan Stevens’ eccentric electronica album Enjoy Your Rabbit –each song named for a year of the Chinese zodiac—recomposes computer keystrokes into rhythmic classical arrangements, bridging the drama of indie rock and the nuance of chamber harmonies. The result is Run Rabbit Run—arranged by Stevens expressly for Osso—to be released on Asthmatic Kitty Records October 6.
Osso began as members of My Brightest Diamond, playing concerts that included segments of baroque aria amidst a set of Shara Worden’s haunting songs. In 2005 Osso recorded string parts for My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me the Workhorse and Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, and continues to perform with both bands.
Sufjan Stevens’ The BQE is a 40-minute symphonic and cinematic exploration of the infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a major traffic artery that severed neighborhoods and contoured waterways with the brute force of modern urban planning. Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival in November 2007, the film tells a quintessentially American tale through an original film and recorded score by Stevens. More information and film preview at http://asthmatickitty.com/news.php?newsID=478.
On the heels of his first release, Heavy Ghost (Asthmatic Kitty), DM Stith brings his “uplifting, beautifully addictive” music to the Southern Theater for a listening party that promises to be “like nothing you’ve heard before” (The Guardian). Instrumental crescendos and eerie vocals encase lyrics gripping and poignant in Stith’s masterfully devastating songs. Expect to see much more from this artist on the rise in years to come.
Show time: Thurs. October 29 at 7:30pm
Pre-show reception: 6:30pm, sponsored by The Red Stag Supperclub providing Grainbelt & Schells beer and OKO organic wines
Tickets: $22
Southern Theater box office: 612.340.1725 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55454
The Southern Theater thanks its 2009/10 music season sponsors:
89.3 The Current – official radio sponsor
vita.mn – official print media sponsor
Red Stag Supperclub – official beverage sponsor
aloft hotel – official hospitality sponsor
Town Hall Brewery – official dining sponsor
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10.18.09: The Cedar Cultural Center and Sound Unseen Presents “Youssu N’Dour: I Bring What I Love”
Date: 10/18/2009
Doors Open: 7:00pm
Cost: $8.00
I Bring What I Love:A music-infused cinematic journey about the power of one man’s voice to inspire change. One of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world and called “the rare rock star whose music matters,”
Tickets go on sale at noon Fri Sept 18 from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.
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SEPT. 17-20: Sound Unseen partners with Range Life for special prefest screenings:
Range Life Entertainment invites You to Exclusive Engagements as Part of Our Fall Tour Series
- Fall Tour 2009 – Minneapolis, MN – Trylon Microcinema -
3258 Minnehaha Ave Map
Anywhere, USA
Thursday, September 17th, 9:00pm
White On Rice
Saturday, September 19th, 5:00pm
Visioneers
Sunday, September 20th, 7:00pm
Range Life Entertainment presents six energetic and irreverent independent comedies that have been turning heads and generating cult audiences at festivals across the country (Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, and CineVegas to name a few).Traversing the nation by van this fall, these filmmakers are at the forefront of a new trend in distribution; engaging in grassroots marketing and on-line promotion to bring their films directly to the audience. As filmmaker and tour organizer Todd Sklar says, “It’s all about getting these films out there and connecting with their audiences. Everything else in this business is white noise.” So tune it out altogether and join us for 3 nights of festival favorites at Central Cinema.
This weekend’s program in Minneapolis features:
Thursday, September 17, 9:00pm
“Anywhere USA reduces every audience it sees into a delighted giggling mob. They did this movie out of love — love for the weird. love for the unsayable idea. love for the privilege of movie making. It reminds one of the joy of sitting in an audience of strangers while everyone laughs hysterically.” — Quinten Tarantino
Told in three subtly related segments (Penance, Loss, and Ignorance), ANYWHERE USA is a du jour portrait of one man’s America inspired by and drawn from the director’s own experiences as both foreigner and citizen of these United States.
Featuring a cast of mostly non-professionals and exploring passive racism, geo-political vagaries, good intentions, faith and disappointment, this deeply personal film manages to tread the lines between vulgar and humane, between absurd and tender, and finds its heart in the story segment featuring the director’s own daughter and a man living in a van.
Part satire, part tragedy, part masterpiece theatre gone awry, ANYWHERE USA is a film that defies gravity.
Website:http://anywhereusathemovie.com
Trailer:http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=21879985230
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82376
Saturday, September 19, 5:00pm
“Hilarious and heartwarming, White On Rice hits every comedic beat with surgical precision, while Hiroshi Watanabe masterfully walks the fine line between court jester and village idiot.” — Michael Tully
A genuinely funny fish out of water tale, White on Rice follows Jimmy, who loves dinosaurs and sleeps on the top bunk. Unfortunately, Jimmy is 40 and shares that bunk with Bob his 10-year-old nephew.
Freshly divorced and living with his sister and her family, Jimmy boldly searches for a new life, and although he lacks social grace and is prone to accidents, he’s more than convinced that the best years of his life are just beginning. He just needs a little direction.
When his sister’s beautiful niece Ramona moves in, Jimmy finally has something to focus on; stealing her from his best friend Tim, however his intentions go hilariously awry.
Website:http://whiteonricethemovie.com/main.html
Trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2f9vj60lfI
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82377
Sunday, September 20, 7:00pm
“Starring Zach Galifianackas, Vissioneers is a pseudo-absurdist commentary on corporate politics and fatuous American living at their worst. Despite being familiar subject matter, the film manages to be insightful, intelligent, and absurdly hilarious. A high-concept comedy, that’s down-to-earth and accessible, and even a little touching. ” — Eric Snider
The Jeffers Corporation is the largest business in the history of mankind, and they got that way thanks to their strict philosophy of happiness through mindless productivity. But when people begin literally exploding due to unhappiness, Jeffers Corporation Level Three TUNT George Washington Winsterhammerman begins to fear that his time will come sooner rather than later.
George lives a comfortable yet completely uneventful life, and when he starts having dreams in which he’s the first president of the United States, his doctor informs him that they could be signs of impending explosion. Later, as the dreams become more frequent and his co-workers continue to detonate, George is prompted to reevaluate his mundane existence.
As George’s life slowly descends into chaos, his dreams intensify, and he becomes increasingly involved with a mysterious woman from work. With the threat of explosion looming, George must choose to continue living the life he knows, or to break free in the hope of achieving a more fulfilling existence.
Website:http://www.visioneersthemovie.com
Trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI8UdlAw8VA
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/82379
- PLUS -
Official After Parties:
Stareoke @ Grumpys – Thursday Sept. 17th
Drinks and More Drinks @ Town Talk Diner – Saturday, Sept. 19th
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