Keyword 'Music'

«Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony» shows how music was used in the fight for freedom. In the South African liberation struggle against apartheid, it was not least the songs that united those who were being oppressed and gave those fighting a way to express their plight.

A visual poem of incomparable beauty, this masterpiece from director Nacer Khemir (Wanderers of the Desert) begins with the story of a blind dervish named Bab’Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years.

This film is an homage to the rich an complex history of Latin America. Without any narrative sequence, but with a serie of images, music and sounds, the spectator gets transported through Mexico's history.

Norbu is a nomad who lives with his wife and his child in the mountainous highland of tibet as a shepherd. He belongs to an ethnic minority and from time to time he sees himself compelled to act as a horse thief in order to provide his family with food.

After studying literature at Cairo University, Dunia, 23 years old, wants to become a professional dancer. She attends audition for an oriental dance contest where she recites Arabian poetry without any body movement. She explains to the perplexed jury that a woman can't move her body or evoke act of love when society ask women to hide their femininity.

A Japanese man searches the internet looking for his dream car, a 1967 Citroen DS (in French: Déesse, or "Goddess") . He locates one in Australia and travels there to buy it. Upon his arrival he finds the seller dead. A 17 year-old blind girl tells him she can take him to find the real owner.

This movie gives us a glimpse at life in northern Taiwan. The main person is Kao, a 37-years-old man who has constantly to solve problems created by his younger brother Flat Head and his girlfriend Pretzel. As a non-stop schemer, Kao devises a plan to raise money by trading subsidized pigs to the government for cash.

In the sixties, the people of Mali awoke each morning to the sound of Boubacar "KarKar" Traoré's voice on the radio, singing of independence.

Everyone in Mali remembers having danced to his hits. But since his music was only played on the radio, he didn't earn enough money to live on and he had to stop playing music to work as a tailor and a salesman to feed his family.

A few years later, he is dealt a cruel blow: his beloved wife, Pierrette dies.

"La danse du singe et du poisson" is the documentary film that goes with "Les gens de la rizière". It shows the seven girls aged from four to fourteen years that star in "Les gens de la rizière".

A blind master wanders through a mythic landscape of a terrific beauty to play his songs and sing his ballads. His whole life he's had one hope, one dream of another world: According to a prophecy he shall be able to see, if he has broken 1000 of his banjo strings.

Yumiko is a young woman from Osako, whose life is defined by the death of her loved ones. She lost her grandmother at the age of twelve, and her husband Ikuo, who is the reincarnation of her grandmother to her, commits suicide some months after the birth of their child.

MADRIGAL is dedicated to René Clair. Why? In 1955, this French director made LES GRANDES MANOEUVRES (SUMMER MANOEUVRES), in which Gérard Philipe plays a young officer who accepts a bet that he can win the heart of Michèle Morgan, who plays the most beautiful and mysterious woman in town.

Mika Kaurismäki’s documentary about world-famous South African singer Miriam Makeba, who spent half a century travelling the world spreading her political message to fight racism, poverty and promote justice and peace, is a tribute to a woman who embodied the hopes and the voice of Africa as no other.

Travelling up and down the majestic river Congo on a disheveled boat, the young orphan Antoine Kolosoy composed his first songs on a beat up old guitar. As he gained renown, the young “Wendo,” as he was now known, was persecuted by the church and his music banned by the Belgian Colonial authorities, who feared his joyful rhythms would stir unrest.

Inspired by the famous story “The Abduction of Sita” from the great classic of ancient Indian and South East-Asian literature the Ramayana, OPERA JAWA is a musical like no other in cinema. It tells of a passionate love triangle that leads inexorably to conflict, violence and death.

In the capital of Burkina Faso, a band of young people tries to survive and thrive vis-a-vis the thousand and one temptations. Adventures of a band of youngsters, living in a stripped district of Ouagadougou, who seek hopes. The easy way and ingeniousness compensate for the money which often is lacking.

In 1979, in a China undergoing rapid changes, it is still forbidden to listen to pop music. Platform is a record young people listen to in secret. Minliang and his friends, an official theatre company, present a play in praise of Mao Zedong.

It might take two viewings to grasp fully what Fernando Pérez is doing in "Suite Habana," an elusive but intermittently beautiful tone poem on film. There is virtually no dialogue. There are no story lines that build to a climax, no documentary-style voice-overs.

A poetical and musical evocation

Western Thebes spreads out on the left bank of the Nile, in Louxor, Upper Egypt. It is there where ancient Thebes along with its traditional life collides with the modern world: They cross and overlap.

TOKYO SONATA is a portrait of a seemingly ordinary Japanese family. The father who abruptly loses his job conceals the truth from his family; the eldest son in college hardly returns home; the youngest son furtively takes piano lessons without telling his parents; and the mother, who knows deep down that her role is to keep the family together, cannot find the will to do so.

There is an old Indian tradition according to which the parents teach their children the songs of wisdom, in order to enable them to bear their fate and their lives with more calmness.
Pallavi - acted by India's most successful TV-star Kitu Gidwani - is a young, successful singer who has learnt her art with the help of her mother.