Saigon, U.S.A

Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, Vietnamese refugees have built the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam, in Orange County, California. In 1999, "Little Saigon" burst onto the national stage when a store owner displayed a poster of Ho Chi Minh, triggering protests by Vietnamese Americans struggling to reconcile their past demons with their present lives. Saigon, U.S.A. uses this moment to examine this community's changing identity and growing empowerment.

Frank Zappa: Peefeeyatko

For the past ten years Zappa in composing has turned away from Rock and Roll music - for which he first became famous - and has been working on new, contemporary, orchestral electronic music; in solitude and beyond any commercial conventions or commitments. It is the first time that Zappa has allowed a film crew to study him during compositional work, actually filming the first moments of a new compositional process. By contrast, in a staged interview Zappa gives comments on music. This film seeks to reveal the sensetivities of Zappa's personality and character also beyond narrative content.

Electronic Vibrations: A Sound Changes the World

The amazing story of electronic music: its epic journey from its origins in Europe, at the hands of the great artists of the post-war classical avant-garde, to the great post-industrial cities of the USA, where this genre of genres took over music stores, shady clubs and, eventually, the big stages.

Moonwalk

This short documentary film captures the natural movement of the moon mixed with an experimental musical track that accompanies the rhythm of the "walk" on the stage that the protagonist occupies, the sky.

OHM+: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music : 1948–1980

Over two hours of rare performances, interviews, animations, and experimental video. Milton Babbit’s discussion of the difficulties of working with archaic synthesizers in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in the 1950s and ’60s is a firm reminder of just how foreign electronic sounds were to even the academic community only 40 years ago. Likewise, Paul Lansky’s private lesson with theremin inventor Leon Theremin is an example of how non-user friendly electronic musical instruments could be, even to people who should have the best sense of how to approach them.

An American Dissident: un tributo a Frank Zappa

An American Dissident: un tributo a Frank Zappa is an Italian documentary that aired on the Videomusic channel on January 7, 1994. It includes footage from Zappa's Universe, Video From Hell, Does Humor Belong In Music?, Baby Snakes, The True Story Of 200 Motels, The Late Show, Zappa's May 17, 1988 show at Palacio de Deportes in Barcelona, Spain, The Dub Room Special, various other interviews and performances.

The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye

An intimate, affecting portrait of the life and work of ground-breaking performance artist and music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and his wife and collaborator, Lady Jaye, centered around the daring sexual transformations the pair underwent for their 'Pandrogyne' project.

FUCK TV

After concluding the now-legendary public access TV series, The Pain Factory, Michael Nine embarked on a new and more subversive public access endeavor: a collaboration with Scott Arford called Fuck TV. Whereas The Pain Factory predominantly revolved around experimental music performances, Fuck TV was a comprehensive and experiential audio-visual presentation. Aired to a passive and unsuspecting audience on San Francisco’s public access channel from 1997 to 1998, each episode of Fuck TV was dedicated to a specific topic, combining video collage and cut-up techniques set to a harsh electronic soundtrack. The resultant overload of processed imagery and visceral sound was unlike anything presented on television before or since. EPISODES: Yule Bible, Cults, Riots, Animals, Executions, Static, Media, Haterella (edited version), Self Annihilation Live, Electricity.

Latvian Coyote

An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Write Your Own Code

As Genesis and I were working on the documentary film "Change Itself” (released in 2016), we agreed that it would be great to also have Genesis reading poetry in the film. One clip was eventually used. "Write Your Own Code" contains all of the material we shot in Oslo, Norway, 2014. These sessions also became the creative ignition for the spoken word album we made together in 2017, and which was released in 2019 by Ideal Recordings: "Loyalty Does Not End With Death." I have left the casual tone of the sessions, including some mishaps, as untouched as possible. Write Your Own Code! – Carl Abrahamsson, 2021

THÁI BẢO HUỲNH KHANG

A trans Vietnamese woman's deadname being repeated over and over again.

47 Days, Sound-less

47 Days, Sound-less by Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Trinh Thi is a film that explores the relationships between sound and silence, vision, language, colours and their absence. Nguyễn identifies “peripheries”—including natural landscapes used as backdrops, uncredited characters and soundtracks from American and Vietnamese movies—that reveal more-than-human perspectives. Offering new ways of looking and listening, 47 Days, Sound-less invites audiences to reflect on the inextricable relationship between a place and its inhabitants.

Sisters with Transistors

Think of early electronic music and you’ll likely see men pushing buttons, knobs, and boundaries. While electronic music is often perceived as a boys' club, the truth is that from the very beginning women have been integral in inventing the devices, techniques and tropes that would define the shape of sound for years to come.

Sound Pictures by Music

Time

Then, now, where? how?

The Art of Nôm

The Art of Nom explores an ancient and nearly extinct Vietnamese script called Chu Nom and the five scholarly artists known as Zenei, Gang of Five. The beauty, heritage and emotion of the Chu Nom characters inspire Zenei’s art. The film also examines Vietnam’s culture, history, customs, and the social impact of rapid modernization in a changing world. Art of Nom follows Zenei through their research and explorations that takes them far off the beaten path. They enter hidden library chambers of Buddhist pagodas to examine original Nom scriptures and woodblocks preserved by monks through the centuries. Led by renowned artist Le Quoc Viet, Zenei is a collective of avant-garde calligraphers forging a new path, merging contemporary visual expression with a nearly extinct script. Zenei elevates art and history to a new level of experience.