For the third year, life in Vienna is once again being enhanced with an exquisite music film festival – the Poolinale. Taking place from the 18th – 21st of April, the next few days are reason enough for music film buffs to salivate over an outstanding program of current pop culture movies.
The focus of this year’s film selection is the journey – and with it comes the peace and the restlessness that seems to be inherent in a musician’s existence. The hasty change of venues on tour, the dislocation and insecurity caused by rapid fame and sudden fall. Melancholy, loneliness, wanderlust but also arrival, happiness and creativity – thus every movie is an adventure in itself.
The Poolinale team will present a curated selection of 13 films, including a European premiere (“Suuns Europe 2011”) and non less than seven Austrian premieres. For the first time in this country, the Poolinale will be showing the Grammy award-winning documentary “Big Easy Express“, which accompanied the new folk pop darlings Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes by train across America.
Part of this year’s program is also the International Record Store Day, which coincides with the Saturday of the festival (Saturday, 20th). Besides lots of great music deals in local record stores during the day, the official Record Store Day film “Last Shop Standing” will be featured in the evening of the Poolinale’s festival program.
The program also includes many insider tips and surprises, for example the equally witty and relentless film “Kidd Life“, which traces the rapid rise and fame of the Danish hip hopper Kidd, or “New American Noise” – an acclaimed short film series, and just recently praised at the Sundance Film Festival, on the North American underground scene.
The festival venues are once again the Top Kino, serving as the communicative and cozy Poolinale headquarters (from Thursday to Saturday) and the Gartenbaukino, which is the venue for the final event on Sunday afternoon: Foo Fighters front man and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl portraits in his first film project the Californian “Sound City” studio and meets up with friends, colleagues and legends that have contributed to recent music history – from Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty, Neil Young and Nine Inch Nails to Rage Against The Machine and Metallica – yet another Austrian premiere (Sunday, 21st).
Overall, the Poolinale program reads as a fantastic festival line-up: BLUR, MUMFORD & SONS, BEACH HOUSE, EDWARD SHARPE & THE MAGNETIC ZEROES, ANTONY AND THE JONSONS, OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW, EFTERKLANG, CLARA LUZIA; PEACHES, GONZALES, PAUL WELLER, JOHNNY MARR, TEAM ME, GUSTAV and many others will be seen and heard. The Poolinale wants to invite visitors to see artists and their work from a different side and to experience an additional perspective.
This year’s festival edition will be opened with an “Austrian Day” on the 18th of April. On the one hand Andreas Steinkogler will celebrate his elaborate documentation “Welcome To The Machine” – his first performance at “home”. On the other hand, the conference and theory part of the festival, the Poolinale Talks, will be devoted to the subject of music video. With guests from film, music and advertising, the discussions will deal with the matter of how much impact music films have on bigger careers – with examples by Stefan Ruzowitzky, Lars von Trier or Spike Jonze. The Poolinale Talks will also take place in the Top Kino and are open to the public with free admission.
Links:
www.poolinale.at
www.facebook.com/poolinale
Photo Sound City 1978: Roswell Films