Film

In 2008, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova captivated audiences and earned two Academy Awards for their musical collaboration in the film Once, which reached $10 million at the box office and grew their popularity and fan base by tens of thousands in North America and throughout the world. As their fictional romance blurred with reality, they fell in love, recorded an album, and embarked on a world tour. Fueled by two years of exhilaration, performance, and psychological turmoil, The Swell Season is much more than a music documentary. It is a volatile and intimate portrait of a romance that fractures in the face of life on the road and personal tragedy. As Glen and Marketa's relationship unhinges, ultimately music prevails as their enduring connection.

In 2008, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova captivated audiences and earned two Academy Awards for their musical collaboration in the film Once, which reached $10 million at the box office and grew their popularity and fan base by tens of thousands in North America and throughout the world. As their fictional romance blurred with reality, they fell in love, recorded an album, and embarked on a world tour. Fueled by two years of exhilaration, performance, and psychological turmoil, The Swell Season is much more than a music documentary. It is a volatile and intimate portrait of a romance that fractures in the face of life on the road and personal tragedy. As Glen and Marketa's relationship unhinges, ultimately music prevails as their enduring connection.

Synopsis
BENDA BILILI! follows an unlikely group of musicians in Kinshasa, capital of the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.  The band, Staff Benda Bilili — in English, “look beyond” — is a group of street musicians composed of four paraplegics and three able-bodied men. The core of the group is four singer/guitarists stricken with polio, who use customized tricycles to get around: Ricky, the eldest and a co-founding member of the band; Coco, the band’s composer and co-founding member with Ricky; Junana, the member most disabled by polio, yet the official choreographer; and Coude, a bass player and soprano singer. Joining them is a young and entirely acoustic rhythm section, led by Roger, a teenage prodigy on the satongé, a one-string guitar he designed and built himself out of a tin can.

Midwest premier of a documentary about the legendary Portland singer/songwriter. Director Gil Reyes will be present for a Q&A after the screening. Prior to the screening, local artists including James Diers, Holly Newsom, Adam Svec, Robert Skoro, Jon Sunde, Ben Kyle, Benson Ramsey, Eliza Blue, Martin Devaney, and Chris Koza will perform covers of Elliott Smith songs.

The Cedar is now fully air-conditioned for your year-round comfort!

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Broken Dreams is a documentary film about the vanishing Somali youth of Minneapolis, the nation’s largest home for Somali immigrants. Most of these boys left Somalia as refugees when they were very young.  Some of them came here in the United States as toddlers while some of them were born outside Somalia in refugee camps and elsewhere. These boys were the lucky ones who have been given the opportunity to come to the United States as refugees. Many of these young men had a bright future and were pursuing their American dream when somehow they decided to just give up everything and go back to Somalia to fight alongside Al-Shabab, the terrorist group that has links to Al-Qaida.  Six of them are now dead; at least 16 are missing in action. No one knows their whereabouts. This documentary tells the story of some of the deceased boys and their parents. This is the first time that these parents have openly talked about the hopes and dreams of their sons.

We kid you not: a short solo guitar set from renowned avant guitarist Marc Ribot, followed by Marc playing his live score to Charlie Chaplin's silent movie The Kid. Commissioned and premiered in Jan 2010 by the NY Guitar Festival at Merkin Hall. Marc Ribot’s delicate and at times haunting solo guitar score contemporizes this classic Chaplin film to a story relevant to the economic and social conditions of today. Read more »

On 23rd August 2009 a group of Radiohead fans descended on the Výstavištĕ Holešovice Exhibition Hall in Prague on a mission –  to capture the band playing using as many different angles as possible. Bringing together the exceptional talents of many contributors, here is the result. Audio masters kindly provided by the band.

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performances:
15 STEP
THERE THERE
WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI
ALL I NEED
LUCKY
NUDE
MORNING BELL
2+2=5
A WOLF AT THE DOOR
VIDEOTAPE
(NICE DREAM)
THE GLOAMING
RECKONER
EXIT MUSIC (FOR A FILM)
BANGERS N MASH
BODYSNATCHERS
IDIOTEQUE
PYRAMID SONG
THESE ARE MY TWISTED WORDS
AIRBAG
THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY
THE BENDS
TRUE LOVE WAITS
EVERYTHING IN ITS RIGHT PLACE

(Running time is 2 hours, 3 minutes).

“The sneaky, cockeyed tunesmithing of Stephin Merritt, the mind behind cult favorite the Magnetic Fields, finally receives a filmic examination in the well-crafted STRANGE POWERS… Fans will drool at the generous access to the band.” – Robert Koehler, Variety

Ten years in the making, Strange Powers is an intimate documentary portrait of songwriter Stephin Merritt and his band the Magnetic Fields.

With his unique gift for memorable melodies, lovelorn lyrics and wry musical stylings that blend classic Tin Pan Alley with modern sounds, Stephin Merritt has distinguished himself as one of contemporary pop’s most beloved and influential artists. Both a prolific recording artist and composer of theater and film scores, he performs most famously as the Magnetic Fields, whose 1999 three-disc opus 69 Love Songs is widely considered a masterpiece of traditional songcraft and irresistible synthpop.

Strange Powers explores Merritt’s songwriting and recording process, and focuses on his relationships with his bandmates and longtime manager Claudia Gonson, revealing an artist who has produced one of the most engaging and confounding bodies of work in the contemporary American songbook. Read more »

Brendt Barbur, Founding Festival Director, was impelled to start the Bicycle Film Festival ten years ago when he was hit by a bus while riding his bike in New York City. He insisted on turning his negative experience into a positive one. The BFF has been a major catalyst for the urban bike movement, one of  the most powerful and culturally relevant forces of the last decade.  Other activities throughout the four-day event include races, group  rides, and numerous parties.