Composer Will Bates has composed original scores for a myriad of filmmakers including acclaimed directors Mike Cahill (Another Earth; I Origins; Bliss), Alex Gibney (We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks; Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; Zero Days; The Forever Prisoner), Ry Russo-Young (You Won’t Miss Me; Nobody Walks) and Fisher Stevens (Mission Blue; Bright Lights). 

Bates’ upcoming projects include Dark Sky Films’ Blackout, directed by Larry Fessenden and starring Marshall Bell, which hits theaters (limited run) on March 13th. Notable credits include Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money; FX’s Class of ’09; AMC+’s Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches; Dean Craig’s comedy film The Estate; Michael Mohan’s thriller The Voyeurs; Michael Tyburski’s drama film The Sound of Silence; Starz's Sweetbitter; and the drama/sci-fi series Away; Netflix’s Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated mini-series Unbelievable; and the thriller limited series Devil in Ohio; SyFy’s hit series The Magicians; the George R.R. Martin produced series Nightflyers; Hulu’s series The Path; Chance; and The Looming Tower; NBC’s Rise; and more. Bates’ recent score for Michael Mohan’s Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, premiered at SXSW on Tuesday, March 12th and hit theaters on March 22nd.

In an interview with Will Bates after the festival, here is what he had to say:
 

Can you tell us about your music background and what led you to film scoring?

WILL: I’ve always wanted to be a film composer. I think I was about 6 or 7 when I sang the entire score of Star Wars to my parents one morning. And once I realized that one man was responsible for all the tunes I’d been humming in my head, I decided I wanted to be John Williams when I grew up. I started playing the saxophone and at about 12 or 13 I got very into jazz. I had a rethink and thought maybe I’d like to be Cannonball Adderley instead. With my buddy Quentin Collins, I started playing in jazz clubs and bars around London from the age of about 14, masquerading as an 18-year-old, wearing my dad’s oversized suits. Then I discovered electronic music and released some obscure dance music on tiny London labels. I later moved to New York and became the lead singer of an Indie Rock band called The Rinse. We toured the US, opened for some big bands, and had a record released in Japan. But generally, we somehow dodged success like skilled ninjas. But all through that time, my lingering first love of scoring remained. The only way I ever learnt to support myself was by scoring commercials, first in London, and fi

Composer Will Bates has composed original scores for a myriad of filmmakers including acclaimed directors Mike Cahill (Another Earth; I Origins; Bliss), Alex Gibney (We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks; Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; Zero Days; The Forever Prisoner), Ry Russo-Young (You Won’t Miss Me; Nobody Walks) and Fisher Stevens (Mission Blue; Bright Lights). 

Bates’ upcoming projects include Dark Sky Films’ Blackout, directed by Larry Fessenden and starring Marshall Bell, which hits theaters (limited run) on March 13th. Notable credits include Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money; FX’s Class of ’09; AMC+’s Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches; Dean Craig’s comedy film The Estate; Michael Mohan’s thriller The Voyeurs; Michael Tyburski’s drama film The Sound of Silence; Starz's Sweetbitter; and the drama/sci-fi series Away; Netflix’s Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated mini-series Unbelievable; and the thriller limited series Devil in Ohio; SyFy’s hit series The Magicians; the George R.R. Martin produced series Nightflyers; Hulu’s series The Path; Chance; and The Looming Tower; NBC’s Rise; and more. Bates’ recent score for Michael Mohan’s Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, premiered at SXSW on Tuesday, March 12th and hit theaters on March 22nd.

In an interview with Will Bates after the festival, here is what he had to say:
 

Can you tell us about your music background and what led you to film scoring?

WILL: I’ve always wanted to be a film composer. I think I was about 6 or 7 when I sang the entire score of Star Wars to my parents one morning. And once I realized that one man was responsible for all the tunes I’d been humming in my head, I decided I wanted to be John Williams when I grew up. I started playing the saxophone and at about 12 or 13 I got very into jazz. I had a rethink and thought maybe I’d like to be Cannonball Adderley instead. With my buddy Quentin Collins, I started playing in jazz clubs and bars around London from the age of about 14, masquerading as an 18-year-old, wearing my dad’s oversized suits. Then I discovered electronic music and released some obscure dance music on tiny London labels. I later moved to New York and became the lead singer of an Indie Rock band called The Rinse. We toured the US, opened for some big bands, and had a record released in Japan. But generally, we somehow dodged success like skilled ninjas. But all through that time, my lingering first love of scoring remained. The only way I ever learnt to support myself was by scoring commercials, first in London, and finally landing m

Composer Will Bates has composed original scores for a myriad of filmmakers including acclaimed directors Mike Cahill (Another Earth; I Origins; Bliss), Alex Gibney (We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks; Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; Zero Days; The Forever Prisoner), Ry Russo-Young (You Won’t Miss Me; Nobody Walks) and Fisher Stevens (Mission Blue; Bright Lights). 

Bates’ upcoming projects include Dark Sky Films’ Blackout, directed by Larry Fessenden and starring Marshall Bell, which hits theaters (limited run) on March 13th. Notable credits include Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money; FX’s Class of ’09; AMC+’s Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches; Dean Craig’s comedy film The Estate; Michael Mohan’s thriller The Voyeurs; Michael Tyburski’s drama film The Sound of Silence; Starz's Sweetbitter; and the drama/sci-fi series Away; Netflix’s Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated mini-series Unbelievable; and the thriller limited series Devil in Ohio; SyFy’s hit series The Magicians; the George R.R. Martin produced series Nightflyers; Hulu’s series The Path; Chance; and The Looming Tower; NBC’s Rise; and more. Bates’ recent score for Michael Mohan’s Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, premiered at SXSW on Tuesday, March 12th and hit theaters on March 22nd.

In an interview with Will Bates after the festival, here is what he had to say:
 

Can you tell us about your music background and what led you to film scoring?

WILL: I’ve always wanted to be a film composer. I think I was about 6 or 7 when I sang the entire score of Star Wars to my parents one morning. And once I realized that one man was responsible for all the tunes I’d been humming in my head, I decided I wanted to be John Williams when I grew up. I started playing the saxophone and at about 12 or 13 I got very into jazz. I had a rethink and thought maybe I’d like to be Cannonball Adderley instead. With my buddy Quentin Collins, I started playing in jazz clubs and bars around London from the age of about 14, masquerading as an 18-year-old, wearing my dad’s oversized suits. Then I discovered electronic music and released some obscure dance music on tiny London labels. I later moved to New York and became the lead singer of an Indie Rock band called The Rinse. We toured the US, opened for some big bands, and had a record released in Japan. But generally, we somehow dodged success like skilled ninjas. But all through that time, my lingering first love of scoring remained. The only way I ever learnt to support myself was by scoring commercials, first in London, and finally landing m

La 17ème Edition du Festival Caravane des Cinémas d’Afrique aura lieu du 5 au 14 avril 2024 au Ciné Mourguet et dans 30 salles partenaires en Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Parmi elles :  Alpha Charbonnières, Le Toboggan Décines, Eole Craponne, Lyon Opéra, Lumière Fourmi, Le St-Denis, Le Comoedia, Le Ciné Duchère, La Maison du Peuple Pierre Bénite, Le Ciné Rillieux, La Mouche St-Genis, Lem Tassin, G. Philipe Vénissieux, Le Zola Villeurbanne…

Après une édition 2022 encore marquée par la crise COVID, la Caravane des Cinémas d’Afrique revient pour sa 17ème édition. Le Festival, en biennale depuis 1992, reste fidèle à son double objectif : promouvoir les cinématographies du continent africain et valoriser les cultures africaines dans toute leur diversité. Cette année, 20 pays africains sont mis à l’honneur au travers d’une quarantaine de films (longs métrages, documentaires, courts métrages, jeune public). 30 salles partenaires à travers toute la Région s’associent également à la Caravane pour faire découvrir ces œuvres. Le Prix du Public, offert par la Ville de Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, récompense le ou la cinéaste d’un des 9 films en compétition. Et un jury jeune distingue le Meilleur Court Métrage parmi les 10 films proposés. Également au programme : une Nuit du cinéma marocain, une Nuit du cinéma tunisien, un Ciné Jazz, une séance pour fêter la rumba congolaise et des séances accompagnées la plupart du temps par une vingtaine d’invités (réalisateurs, producteurs, critiques et autres spécialistes).Le Festival en quelques chiffres : 40 films présentés, 30 salles partenaires en Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, 20 nationalités et invités, 100 séances, 9 films en compétition pour le Prix du Public, 10 courts métrages pour le Prix du Jury Jeune mais aussi une exposition sur le thème « La coiffure d’Afrique de l’Ouest ».

Parmi les invités déjà annoncés : Sana Na N’hada (réal) – Nome / Moussa Sène Absa (réal) – Xalé, les blessures de l’enfance / Karim Hapette (réal) et Adrien Loure (producteur) – L’bnat / Jean-Pierre Lagrange(producteur) – Au cimetière de la pellicule / Rosine Mbakam (réal en visio) – Mambar Pierrette, Les prières de Delphine, Chez jolie coiffure / Apolline Traore (réal) - Sira

Film music isn’t a genre of music – it’s effectively all genres. For a while it was very largely dominated by romantic symphonic music, then jazz came into it, then other 20th century musical forms, and eventually we’ve ended up in a place where it can be anything. Likewise, there are so many ways of scoring a film – Composer A may score a film one way, Composer B may well have scored the same film a very different way, and they may both have been absolutely great film scores. There’s really no “right answer” here. Which brings me to the question – what is film music for?

This is something I’ve spent much of my time thinking about while watching Shogun on Disney+. It’s the second epic miniseries based on James Clavell’s novel about political scheming in 16th century Japan observed and influenced by an English sailor and has just about everything you might want from one of these things – complex characters and plot carefully woven over an extended runtime, great costumes and battles and landscapes and, well, OK obviously there’s something missing.

I reiterate that there is no right way of scoring a film (or in this case tv show). But having said that, if the showrunners of Shogun had called me up and asked me what I thought they should look for in the score to their show then I’d have said it seems pretty obvious to me what would work best – this is something that clearly offers the scope for a composer to really go big – there’s action, adventure, romance, east-meets-west clash of culture, drama, tragedy – we could have themes! We can have rousing action music! If you want to go the extra mile, we can have music that plants seeds early on that get developed later on.

I realise that it’s 2024 and my views of what film music can and should be are based in what is now the fairly distant past. So what is it for? Well it seems to me that it can help the filmmaker tell their story – it can emphasise things that are there, it can plug gaps that aren’t there, it can subliminally lead the audience to a certain place, it can heighten emotions, it can when necessary dull emotions – it can do anything, really, in the hands of the right person.

John Barry wrote a brilliant score for Out of Africa. It’s pretty much a perfect film score, in my mind. Sydney Pollack originally asked him to write African music for it – Barry had to persuade him that the film was set in Africa but it wasn’t about Africa. He wanted to score the emotions and that’s what he did, brilliantly. Let’s say in a parallel universe that Pollack’s usual composer Dave Grusin had scored the film and had followed Pollack’s instruction – he’d have probably written a great score himself, completely different from Barry’s, blending his usual style with African influences and arriving at a completely different destination but still doing something to elevate the film.

So I’m just repeating myself really – making my facile point over and over again that there are many different ways to skin a cat. But what on earth is the music of Shogun trying to do? Near the end of the first episode, the English character catches the eye of a beautiful Japanese woman when he is hauled before one of the local lords. There’s clearly a connection there – in my version of this film score, that’s the point when the composer drops just a couple of bars of what will later become his love theme. But in the version of the score we actually got, we hear keyboard droning, seemingly oblivious to anything happening on the screen.

In the fourth episode, said lord (Toranaga) returns to the village his people are from. It’s a triumphant return – he is given a hero’s welcome, thousands of troops lined

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the 26th annual festival, April 4–7, 2024. Full Frame will exhibit documentary features and shorts from around the world in a premier showcase of film screenings, discussions, and panels held in historic downtown Durham, N.C. This year’s festival will include 50 titles, 35 features and 15 short films from 22 countries.

NEW DOCS

1489 / Armenia (Director: Shoghakat Vardanyan; Producer: Shoghakat Vardanyan)
Over two years, filmmaker Shoghakat Vardanyan documented her parents and herself, waiting to hear about the fate of her twenty-one-year-old brother Soghomon, a musician, who disappeared in the front line of the brutal 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) War. Filming with her phone, Vardanyan turns her family’s grief into a film as an act of escape.

Agent of Happiness / Bhutan, Hungary (Directors: Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó; Producers: Noémi Veronika Szakonyi, Máté Artur Vincze, Arun Bhattarai)
Amber is one of the many agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness levels among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way?

All We Carry (Lo que llevamos) / United States (Director: Cady Voge; Producers: Laura Pilloni, Laura Tatham, Cady Voge)
All We Carry follows a young Honduran family as they flee persecution—migrating in cargo trains across Mexico, claiming asylum at the US border, and enduring separation in detention before being released in Seattle. There, a local synagogue sponsors the family for two years while they await the final decision on their asylum case. As the family tries to settle into their new home, we witness their everyday moments—both sorrowful and joyful—along the way.

American Seams / United States (Director: Carly Jakins; Producer: Carly Jakins)
The stories of three quilters combine to reveal an intimate portrait of rural women in the American West.  World Premiere

Anyuka / United States (Director: Maya Erdelyi; Producer: Maya Erdelyi)
Interweaving super 8 family films, archival material, and experimental animation, a granddaughter takes a deep dive into the remarkable life of her indomitable grandmother— a writer, WWII refugee and Holocaust survivor. Anyuka (Hungarian for mother) explores intergenerational trauma, the Jewish diaspora, immigration, motherhood, and religious identity, to tell the story of a tragic and marvelous life across continents.

Ashima / United States, Spain, France, South Africa, United Kingdom (Director: Kenji Tsukamoto; Producers: Minji Chang, Dave Boyle, Roy Choi, Kenji Tsukamoto)
Ashima is an intimate portrait of elite rock climber Ashima Shiraishi as she travels to South Africa to try to become the youngest person in the world to climb a v14 graded boulder problem. Accompanying Ashima is Poppo, an eccentric, hermit-like, retired avant-garde dancer, who also happens to be her father. Emotional and rooted in character, Ashima is a love letter not only to climbing, but to immigrant parents and the realization of the American Dream.

The Bus (El bus) / Spain (Director: Sandra Reina; Producer: Valérie Delpierre, Jaume Fargas Coll)
This round-trip bus ride takes passengers on Friday mornings towards the weekend and picks them up on Sunday afternoons to take them back to the place where they came from.

The Bitter Pill / United States (Director: Clay Tweel; Producers: Tim Grant, Shannon E. Riggs, Mary Rohlich)
With his hometown ravaged by the opioid epidemic,

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival will celebrate filmmakers Nancy Buirski, who also founded the festival, and D. A. Pennebaker with the 2024 Full Frame Tribute. 

“Remembering Nancy and Penny, I cannot think of two people who are more responsible for shaping Full Frame as a cultural institution,” said co-festival director and artistic director Sadie Tillery. “Over the years, they shared their films, their passion for the craft of filmmaking, their knowledge of the documentary form, and their profound desire to hold space for meaningful dialogue and connection. Full Frame would not be Full Frame without them, and it means the world to me to highlight their invaluable contributions this year.” 

Full Frame will screen a selection of Buirski’s and Pennebaker’s films at the four-day festival. An event where friends, colleagues, and fellow filmmakers remember Buirski’s visionary artistry will take place in Fletcher Hall. The festival will also a feature a panel conversation around Pennebaker’s legacy as a pioneer of cinéma vérité and a mentor to numerous filmmakers. 

Read the press here.

2024 Full Frame Tribute
Nancy Buirski

Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq / United States (Director: Nancy Buirski)
Tanaquil Le Clercq inspired choreographers unlike any ballerina before her, but in 1956, at the height of her fame, she was stricken with polio. A mesmerizing film of love, loss, and surprising grace.

Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy / United States (Director: Nancy Buirski)
Inspired by Glenn Frankel’s 2021 book Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic, Nancy Buirski’s documentary explores the groundbreaking movie, but her attention is trained on the people who made it and the times in which it was made.

The Loving Story / United States (Director: Nancy Buirski)
The Loving Story tells the dramatic story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple living in Virginia in the 1950s, and their landmark Supreme Court Case, Loving v. Virginia, that changed history.

2024 Full Frame Tribute
D. A. Pennebaker

Daybreak Express / United States (Director: D. A. Pennebaker)
Shot in 1953, though not completed until 1957, Daybreak Express was the first film D. A. Pennebaker made, a mad rush of images of New York City captured from a train and edited to the rhythm of Duke Ellington’s song of the same name. A jazz aficionado, Pennebaker thought his career would continue along this path, making short films cut to songs.

Dont Look Back / United States (Director: D. A. Pennebaker)
Bob Dylan is captured on-screen as he never would be again in this groundbreaking film from D. A. Pennebaker. The legendary documentarian finds Dylan in England during his 1965 tour, which would be his last as an acoustic artist. In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.

Town Bloody Hall / United States (Directors: Chris Hegedus, D. A. Pennebaker)
On April 30, 1971, a standing-room-only crowd of New York’s intellectual elite packed the city’s Town Hall theater to see Norman Mailer—fresh from the controversy over his e

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