Love songs tend to be seen as unpolitical. Granî however, the energetic Kurdish wedding music, contains significant political meanings. An essay by Martin Stokes on the power of hidden dissent cultures, inspired by George Mürer’s film «Her Bijî Granî».
Angolan producer Nazar grew up in Belgium, spent his teens in Angola, and is now based in the UK. In this interview, he talks about war, anger, discrimination, and loneliness. An experimental podcast.
After watching Anna Gawlita’s film «Krzyżoki» (Horse Riders), Agata Pyzik wonders what’s next for contemporary masculinity?
Watching the film «A Girl’s Band» inspires Luisa Fernanda Uribe to think deeply about feminism and intersectionality in Latin America.
Azin Feizabadi gets caught in Ebrahim Monsefi’s spirit breeze conjured by Kamran Heidari’s «documentary» on the Iranian singer/songwriter, «None of Your Business».
Sound is able to merge supposed contradictions: in the audio walk «Zero, Land der Zukunft» at Dystopie Festival, our writer finds herself entangled both in dystopian and utopian worlds. Here is a short essay on listening as a mode of creating critical agencies.
What can we learn from a film by listening to it? Rana Eid’s «Panoptic» (2019) takes the viewer on a dark peregrination in the city of Beirut, and becomes a terrain on which images, sounds and voices superimpose and coalesce.
Clive Bell muses on the music documentary «Don’t Rush’s» love for Rembetika – Greek urban folk music essentially made by refugees – and on an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
In Ghana, everyday life is widely ruled by the Christian religion. The artists portrayed in the film «Contradict» revolt against this religion’s tendency to dominate people’s histories – by writing their own.
In an era where platforms package music in a way that strips away life’s complexities, Angus Finlayson finds a melancholic antidote in the music documentary «The Long River Slides».
Lacking a common language is not always an obstacle to communication. It can help to build new connections without preconceptions. An essay inspired by the film «In Your Eyes, I See My Country», in which two Israeli musicians travel to Morocco.
