SEEYOUSOUND 11 DIARY – DAY 2

After the opening night, where Toby L and Blur took centre stage, the second day of the festival was decidedly richer and fuller, with the other sections starting to fill the spaces of Cinema Massimo. In the afternoon the Long Play Doc section took over Screen 1 Cabiria. The first film to be screened was Misty – The Errol Garner Story, a biopic about the career of the brilliant pianist Erroll Garner, a figure who left a great mark on the history of jazz. After the delicacy of jazz, we moved on to quite a different genre with the “rock’n roll of those longhairs Steppenwolf”. Born to be wild – The story of Steppenwolf is a documentary directed by German director Oliver Schwehm, who was in the theatre and presented the film together with curator Paolo Campana. The biopic offers a fresh look at the history of the American-Canadian band, both musical and personal. Both the band’s singer John Kay and bassist Nick St. Nicholas emigrated from Germany with their families in the wake of the fall of Nazism. A journey through rough, “heavy metal”-style guitars to tell how they came to write a hit still lodged in our minds like Born to be Wild.

In Screen 2 Rondolino it was the LP Feature section that took over the schedule. First came the Italian premiere of The Gesuidouz, a surreal Japanese comedy about a down-at-heel punk band about to be dropped by its label. A very punk story, with a protagonist convinced she will die soon, given she is 27, not by chance. More than a journey, a real trip, through gigs for cows, pickled radishes, talking cassette tapes and a Shiba dog named John Cage capable of coming out with pearls of wisdom. After Japan we moved on to Poland with the screening of Imago. Decidedly more dramatic tones for this film in which the protagonist Ela is a post-punk singer with bipolar disorder, in a story caught between a desire for emancipation and a clash with harsh reality. The director of this complicated and intense story is Olga Chajdas who was present at the festival and presented the film with curator Matteo Pennacchia.

As evening came, in Screen 1 it was time for a real gem of the eleventh edition of Seeyousound: Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat. Johan Grimonprez’s film is nominated for an Oscar in the “best documentary” category. A film able to fill the theatre almost completely, a notable thing for the screening of a particularly weighty and lengthy documentary. But it makes sense. The curator of the Rising Sound section, Juanit Murillo Apràez, in presenting the film, in collaboration with the association Black History Month Torino, said “if this film doesn’t win the Oscar, I no longer believe in the Oscars”. The film has no narrator. It lets itself be accompanied by the music of great jazz musicians such as Max Roach and Louis Armstrong, figures committed to the fight for the rights of Black people. A great piece of work, weaving together interviews and archive footage, from television reports to UN conferences, in telling the story of Patrice Lumumba and the struggle for the independence of Congo, an area of Africa constantly at war because of the resources it holds to power today’s technological devices such as smartphones or electric cars. Even today there is an ongoing conflict, with the M23, supported by Rwanda, and therefore by the world’s superpowers, trying to conquer territory. A good two hours of film that are an invitation to open our eyes to conflicts that are rarely talked about.

Closing the day in Screen 2 was the film about the Catania underground band Uzeda, presented by director Maria Arena. The director gave Seeyousound a great gift for the Turin premiere of the film. This screening too filled the theatre, showing an audience passionate and curious to see Uzeda on screen again, along with unseen footage of the late Steve Albini. Finally, for Into the Groove, the short film collection XXXDANCE Chapter 2 took the stage. A sequence of short films whose main visual theme was eroticism and the body. When the cinema day was over, everyone moved to Magazzino sul Po, where DJ Khalab got people dancing at the first big Seeyousound party of this edition. A long night lay ahead of the third day of the festival, which – we are biased, but sincere – could not have begun better.