ECM is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM's motto is "the most beautiful sound next to silence", taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in Coda, a Canadian jazz magazine.
James Victor Chesnutt was an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. His first album, Little, was released in 1990. His commercial breakthrough came in 1996 with the release of Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, a charity record of alternative artists covering his songs.
Les Blank was an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians.
Safy Boutella is an Algerian musician, arranger, composer, and record producer who graduated from Berklee College of Music. He is the father of dancer and actress Sofia Boutella. He is best known for creating with Khaled the album Kutché, his album Mejnoun, arranging Nass el Ghiwane, and many young artists since the nineties. He also composed for Djamel Allam Djawhara, more than seventy movie soundtracks, and five musical frescoes.
Chronicle of a Summer is a 1961 French documentary film shot during the summer of 1960 by sociologist Edgar Morin and anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch, with the technical and aesthetic collaboration of Québécois director-cameraman Michel Brault.
Alexander Hacke is a German guitarist, bass guitarist, singer, musician, record producer, writer and filmmaker. He is primarily known as a longtime member of the influential German industrial music group Einstürzende Neubauten.
Birds Eye View (BEV) is a UK charitable organisation established in 2002 to celebrate and support women's work in film, most notably by way of an annual film festival in London that places women at the heart of the creative vision. The last festival was held in 2014 and since 2015 they have operated a year-round charitable mission to bring ever-greater audiences to films by women, funded by the British Film Institute, under their 'Reclaim The Frame' banner.
Danielle de Picciotto is an American-born artist, musician and filmmaker. She was born in Tacoma, Washington, USA and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. In 1989 she founded, along with her then partner Dr. Motte, the first Berlin Love Parade.
Encounters at the End of the World is a 2007 American documentary film by Werner Herzog about Antarctica and the people who choose to spend time there. It was released in North America on June 11, 2008, and distributed by ThinkFilm. At the 81st Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature.
Vincent Moon is an independent filmmaker, photographer, and sound artist from Paris. He was the main director of the Blogotheque's Take Away Shows, a web-based project recording field work music videos of indie rock related musicians as well as some notable mainstream artists like Tom Jones, R.E.M., or Arcade Fire.
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers from all over the world. At the core of the programs is the goal to introduce audiences to the artists' new work, aided by the institute's labs, granting and mentorship programs that take place throughout the year in the United States and internationally.
Branchage is a film festival held in the Channel Island of Jersey. The festival was founded in 2008 by filmmaker Xanthe Hamilton to bring film and arts to the island. It is a mix of site-specific film screenings held across the island in churches, castles, barns, and bunkers alongside more conventional arts spaces and cinemas, alongside film and art commissions, live soundtracks to film, short film programmes, industry networking and spectacular themed parties mixing live performance, name DJs and cabaret.
Sound City is a 2013 American documentary film produced and directed by Dave Grohl, in his directorial debut, about the history of recording studio Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. Grohl was inspired to create the documentary after he purchased several items from the studio, including the Neve 8028 analog mixing console, when it closed as a commercial studio in 2011. The film discusses the historic importance of Sound City Studios and its Neve 8028 console to the world of rock music, along with other recording genres. Sound City debuted on January 18, 2013, to positive reviews, with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. The film engendered a record, Sound City: Real to Reel, which received two Grammy Awards.
Lary Seven is an American multi-instrumentalist based in New York. He was the subject of the documentary Not Junk Yet - The Art of Lary 7, directed by Danielle de Picciotto. He has worked with artists such as Swans and Jarboe.
Hossein Rajabian is an Iranian filmmaker, writer and photographer who was imprisoned as a political prisoner in 2015 on charges related to his filmmaking. He as an anti-censorship filmmaker and defender of freedom of speech for the arts, has been elected as an honorary member of the SRF in France in 2021.
Robert Rutman was a German visual artist, musician, composer, and instrument builder. Best known for his work with homemade idiophones in his Steel Cello Ensemble, Rutman is regarded as a pioneer of multimedia performance in his mixing of music, sculpture, film, and visual art.
