As this year’s Doc’n Roll Film Festival unveils a new season of revelatory music films, festival co-founder Colm Forde picks out some highlights…
GODDESS OF SLIDE: THE FORGOTTEN STORY OF ELLEN McILWAINE
(Dir. Alfonso Maiorana)
Ellen’s story was a revelation for me. She passed away in 2021 and had many, many lives. Born in Nashville but raised in Japan, she worked with Hendrix in New York in the ’60s, and built a huge cult following in Australia in the ’80s. Her version of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” was sampled by Fatboy Slim on “Song For Lindy”, so she was revived in the mid-’90s. Such a rich life with so many ups and downs. Pure passion, doggedness and perseverance – from the artist and the filmmakers. At the festival we feel such an affinity for that.
THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE
(Dir. Maureen Gosling)
Talking about sacrificing everything for her beliefs! Barbara Dane was a white folk and blues singer with an incredibly powerful voice. She came up through Bob Dylan’s world but people like Louis Armstrong and Muddy Waters were huge fans. There were a lot of civil rights activists but she went even further, campaigning for racial and economic justice, protesting the war and nuclear power. She was the first US artist to play in Cuba in 1966, and she’s still playing and fighting the good fight in her nineties. This film is directed by Maureen Gosling, a legend of American documentary filmmaking.
I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD YEARS AGO: STU SPASM
(Dir. Jason Axel Summers)
A lot of the films we show are passion projects made on shoestring budgets, but this one is a real labour of love. Stu came up in Australia just after the Birthday Party with his band Lubricated Goat, then jumped ship to New York in 1992. A fascinating character who influenced a lot of the early grunge scene. A lot of the films we show are about artists’ artists, people who didn’t make it for various reasons, and this is a classic example. Opiates played a major part in Stu’s life, but I think he’s recently clean. His current band, The Art Gray Noizz Quintet, played the premiere in New York.
DORY PREVIN: ON MY WAY TO WHERE
(Dir. Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth)
A brilliant film about a fascinating character. She was a lyricist for MGM in the ’50s and ’60s, writing songs for Judy Garland and Doris Day. She was married to Andre Previn and had a very difficult 1960s, struggling with mental health issues. She then became an intensely personal singer songwriter in the 1970s. Even in the time of Joni Mitchell and Judi Sill, Dory’s songs were just too raw, and way ahead of their time. It’s a great story about struggling through life, despite the shit that’s thrown at you. It’s a story of survival against the misogynist odds.
TEACHES OF PEACHES
(Dir. Philipp Fussenegger and Judy Landkammer)
This is a great film about the 20th anniversary tour Peaches did two years ago. There’s a lot of humour to it – can she pull off the old dance moves in her fifties? She’s got such a great spirit. A lot of what she was pushing against is only really being spoken about now, whether it’s queerness or being non-binary. The film is just a really great celebration of life, of not giving a fuck and taking the piss out of everything. It’s very non-linear – there’s nothing more boring than a linear Wikipedia documentary.
PAULINE BLACK: A 2 TONE STORY
(Dir. Jane Mingay)
Pauline is a woman I have a lot of respect for, from being into The Selecter when I was a kid. She was raised as an adopted child into a white family in Essex that was quite racist. It’s a tough story. She went to university in Coventry and found her people at the right time. She put up with all the misogynist bullshit from the business, but she also had to put up with it on her own tour bus from the band! Then of course she came up against the same stuff when she became an actor. It’s a very telling story about Britain at the time, and what’s been happening more recently.
Doc’n Roll Film Festival’s 11th edition runs from October 24 to November 10 at cinemas across the country; see the full programme at docnrollfestival.com