The illustrious IN-EDIT International Music Documentary Festival is around the corner! Several locations across the Netherlands will have the pleasure to welcome screenings of some of the top music documentaries out there. Mark your calendars, check the programme, get your tickets, tell your friends and fam, and if you're a music documentary feen like us, you certainly won't miss the chance to get your proper docu fix.
IN-EDIT is an international music documentary festival launched in 2003 in Barcelona. Since then, editions have been organized worldwide with more than 100,000 visitors per year in multiple countries. An environment that is brimming with love for film and music. The international music documentary festival wants to create an experience with "films from the backstage" that shows what happens behind the scenes and also bridges the gap between the music and film industry. Get ready for some lovely screenings, Q&A's, industry meetings, expert talks, live music performances and parties(!)
This time again, we had the glorious pleasure to get a few sneak peeks at a few of the films from the announced agenda, and we'd like to bring you the scoop and recommend some of our favorites this year.
UNDERPLAYED
European Premiere
Stacey Lee
2021 | Canada | 88 min | English spoken
Following some of the largest female DJ’s in the world like Tokimonsta, Nervo and Alison in Wonderland, Underplayed unveils the harsh realities of getting to the top in a male focused industry. Now this music isn’t necessarily my jam but the story most certainly is my bread and butter. This documentary taps into the struggles of under representation, sexual harrassment, mental health, queerness, motherhood and the power of feminine identity in electronic music. Even though the film comes across a little too glossy at times, everything is backed up with disturbingly dark statistics, so I will leave you on this one: In a 2018 study across the major electronic record labels it revealed that women make 29% less than men. Now go out and support the underpaid and go watch Underplayed.
Rating: Good
CRESTONE
European Premiere
Marnie Ellen Hertzler
2020 | USA | 73 min | English spoken | English subtitles
Director Marnie Ellen Hertzler draws us into the mumble rap world of Champloosloppy (Soundcloud Rapper) and his gang of utopian idealists. This film is like a weed-induced desert mirage, featuring psychedelic skylines of Colorado, tattoo-soaked twenty something renegades and their dance between social media presence and reality as they know it. Marnie narrates the film and does the most mesmerizing job of focusing less on the music and more on the stoner psyche, sharing the inner workings of Peter Pan (Champloo) and his gang of very lost boys. The viewer is one with her process from the word “action!” which plays with the “what’s seen and what isn’t” and the “game of disbelief and belief’. I highly advise you watch this film, see what I did there, high-ly.
Rating: Mint
A SYMPHONY OF NOISE: MATTHEW HERBERT'S REVOLUTION
Dutch Premiere Enrique Sanchez Lansch 2021 | Germany | 101 min | English spoken | English subtitles
Symphony of Noise gives you an in-depth look into the - at times macabre but never boring - creative process of Matthew Herbert, an electronic music producer from the UK. Matthew uses everyday sounds to make music, from a tree falling in the forest to potatoes being peeled to make fish and chips. No noise is too weird, even the butchering of a pig or his own tooth being pulled. You’ll walk away with a renewed interest in the sounds you experience and hear in everyday life and a fresh look at the possibilities of music as an artform.
Rating: Near Mint
We also had a moment to sit down with the passionate ladies that lead the Dutch version of the festival, Carla Navarro and Anna Chvartchenko, to talk about the legacy of IN-EDIT, their love for documentary music cinematography, anthropology and much more. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation, which will be expanded in the upcoming weeks.
