Vincent Moon Retrospective

Vincent Moon Retrospective

 

AUGUST 20–26, FRIDAY–THURSDAY

Vincent Moon Retrospective

Director in attendance!

His real name is Mathieu Saura, but it's under the name of Vincent Moon that music fans from all over the world know the 30-year-old filmmaker, who has reinvented the music video as a documentary. After studying under photographers Michael Ackerman and Antoine D'Agata, the young music aficionado became increasingly interested in moving images. The combination of music and film could easily have ended in MTV-land. But according to Moon, the usual music video has long been stuck in this limited marketing world.

Starting in 2006 with his Take Away Shows, Moon has offered a non-commercial alternative: small, short films that capture musicians in the alleys, hallways and elevators of the real world, without amplifiers or special effects. The Take Away Shows paved the way for larger film projects and Moon's far-reaching résumé, which now includes concert films and documentaries, all equipped with the special shadow/light aesthetic that give his images a special abstract quality.

Moon's greatest strength may be his ability to capture music without superfluous embellishments. He is a sonic adventurer, constantly seeking new musical treasure chests. He not only discovers, he participates, with his camera as an instrument: while in Seattle for this retrospective Moon will, with a single extended tracking shot, produce a new one-shot film with local Seattle musicians. 

Films screening in this program include: REM 6 Days; Burning & Adelia I Want To Love (both about Mogwai); La Faute Des Fleur (with Kazuki Tomokawa); Little Blue Nothing (about the Czech cellists Irena and Vojtech Havel); Mirror Noir; Arcade Fire, Cheap Magic Inside(featuring Beirut); plus a live expanded cinema program in which Moon narrates some of his latest Take Away Shows. 

 

Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 

  

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Cheap Magic Inside

Aug 20, 2010

(Vincent Moon, Chryde, France, 2007, HD, 60 min)

Co-directing with Chryde, Vincent went to New York to film the band Beirut play all the tracks from their album Flying Club Cup in bars, rooms, parks and even in an ice-cream truck garage.

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Miroir Noir: Arcade Fire

Please note updated showtime!

Aug 21, 2010

(Vincent Morisset, Canada/France, 2008, HD, 70 min)

Moon gives us an alternative to the traditional 'making-of' documentary and concert film with Miroir Noir, which follows Arcade Fire on their world tour.

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Take Away Shows: Expanded Cinema

Aug 22, 2010

At a time when MTV has reduced music to a lonely M, Vincent Moon deconstructs the music film and breathes a new lease of life into the genre. His Take Away Shows continue to impress music fans, who, via the internet, experience some of music’s biggest names playing in the streets of Paris, narrow staircases, mine shafts and even on the can!

"If you've never seen them, they're amazing intimate musical fragments of famous artists taken from Vincent Moon's handheld camera" —The Stranger

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Burning

screens with: Adelia I Want To Love

Aug 23, 2010

(Vincent Moon, Nathanaël Le Scouarnec, 2009, HD, 50 min)

The Scottish band Mogwai performs a luminous show in front of a stunned crowd. As if time stood still, the audience is transported along by musical waves, both poetic and violent. Directors Vincent Moon and Nathanaël Le Scouarnec guide us into the Glaswegian dream that Mogwai’s music invokes.

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REM 6 Days

Aug 24, 2010

(Vincent Moon, Jeremiah, USA/France, 2009, 60 min)

In REM 6 Days we follow lead singer Michael Stipe on stage and off, in performances and interviews. Stipe calls the experience "an experiment in terror," and with his digitally distorted, black-and-white and dry-as-dust images, Moon provides the contents with its right experimental form. 

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Adelia I Want To Love

screens with: Burning

Aug 23, 2010

(Teresa Eggers, Vincent Moon, France, 2009, HD, 25 min)

Adelia is two stories in one: The first is about 90-year-old Adelie, who has never been to a real concert. The other is about the frontman of the band Mogwai, who has played scores of concerts.

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La Faute des Fleurs

Aug 26, 2010

(Vincent Moon, France, 2008, HD, 70 min)

After having been told by a fan about an incredible tale, Viincent Moon traveled to Japan to meet a 59-year-old Japanese folk singer and cult figure Kazuki Tomokawa, better known as "the screaming philosopher." This deeply moving portrait brings to life the flawed Tomokawa, bungled relationships, gambling habit and all.

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Little Blue Nothing

Aug 25, 2010

(Vincent Moon, Antoine Viviani, France, 2009, HD, 51 min)

Everything quivers with sensuality in this touching love story about Czech cellists Irena and Vojtech Havel, who, over 15 years, lived together in a fascinating symbiotic partnership. In addition to a long lineup of brilliant neoclassical works (evoking memories of Arvo Pärt's minimalism, ECM's new jazz, Eastern European folk music and Indian ragas), the duo—performing under the name The Havels—has worked in theatre, film, pictorial arts and poetry.

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