Latitude 17th - 20th July 2008

Music and Film

The Music and Film Arena successfully entwines the alternative world of film and documentaries with live performances and mind-bending visuals that can transport you into a parallel world through sight and sound. Your senses will tingle and tickle with extra special treats from an eclectic mix of visual and musical art.

Keep your eye out for the many, many films, shorts, documentaries, Q&A sessions and live music yet to be confirmed. The Music & Film Arena is an exhilarating corner of seeing and hearing wonderful-ness at Latitude Festival.

Mark Lamarr presents:

Latitude welcomes back Mark Lamarr who, in accordance with his Saturday late night show on Radio 2 - God's Jukebox, will presents the best soul, ska, reggae, country, gospel and rap you never knew you loved. As well as DJ-ing, Lamarr has especially selected exciting performances from Manchester’s legendary punk band Buzzcocks, who are commonly regarded as a seminal influence on the Manchester music scene, the independent record label movement and punk rock; the Son Of Soul Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed and the True Loves who’ll get your pulse racing and your spirit testifying; and lo-fi samples and broken down beats supplied from The Heavy.

“A few years ago I started God's Jukebox on Radio 2 to expose that world of (usually) non guitar music that's barely represented on any frequencies. Everything from Calypso to Rap, 30's Country to Egyptian Jazz, Gospel to Ska, Cole Porter to Wu Tang and above and beyond. Let's pretend it's set the airwaves alight and revel in the recognition of the myriad of unsung artistes that have fuelled my weekly 3 hours. The studio has welcomed legends Allen Toussaint, Tony Joe White, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, The Zombies, Buzzcocks and the unsigned Baby Charles, The Dirty Backbeats, The Surgeons, Little George to the BBC for a session and some of my favourites will be doing what they do best for me at Latitude. I'm going just to see Eli 'Paperboy' Reed."
Mark Lamarr

Providing some sonic delectation to the Music & Film Arena, Mark Lamarr completes his selection of 5 specially chosen acts for his ‘God’s Jukebox’ at Latitude. Lamarr brings the extraordinary talent of James Hunter, one of the best (and one of the few) British blue-eyed soul singers of the last couple of decades. Starting his career as Howlin’ Wilf in the ‘80s, working with Van Morrison in the ‘90s and recording Grammy nominated albums in the ‘00s, James Hunter’s amazing guitar prowess - his manic solos recalling the fretwork of Ike Turner – and soulful voice has earned him plaudits all over the world. According to Van Morrison, James Hunter is "one of the best voices, and one of the best-kept secrets, in British R&B and soul.” Mark Lamarr also invites Hunter’s recent touring buddy and country blues genius Pete Molinari. Hailing from Kent’s Medway Delta, Molinari, discovered by Billy Childish, has been wowing audiences with his remarkable falsetto which echoes such legendary voices as Patsy Cline, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. In the spirit of the great folk revival of the 1960s Molinari channels this inspiration into a fresh and reverent contemporary sound. Both Hunter and Molinari have recorded their forthcoming albums with famed producer Liam Watson at the legendary analogue Toe Rag Studios - where The White Stripes recorded Elephant.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts

Following the success of last year's film programme at Latitude, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts is delighted to announce their involvement for a second year. The Music & Film Arena was full to the brim of exciting screenings, documentaries and discussions last year, courtesy of the involvement of the BAFTA including a Q&A session with Richard Curtis, an exclusive screening of This Is England and a special screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s very first silent black and white thriller The Lodger (1929). The Academy exists to support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the viewing public, and with a full schedule to be announced BAFTA will once again bring a series of exciting events to the festival.

"Last year we organised an outdoor film screening of Hitchcock's silent thriller The Lodger with a live orchestra as well as events and screenings with BAFTA-winners Shane Meadows and Richard Curtis. This year we hope to programme an equally high-profile series of cinematic events to captivate and challenge the Latitude audience. Full details will be announced in the coming months."
Amanda Berry, BAFTA Chief Executive

Barry Adamson

Also in the Music & Film Arena, musician Barry Adamson. Adamson who was the bassist in Howard Devoto's Magazine before hooking up with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in the 80’s, has scored soundtracks for several films including ‘The Last Of England’, ‘Natural Born Killers’ and ‘The Beach’ as well as some of David Lynch’s films.

Chris Shepherd

Chris Shepherd, who as well as his celebrated short ‘Dad’s Dead’, has worked on ‘Big Train’, ‘Nathan Barley’ and collaborated with David Shrigley on ‘Who I am and What I do’. In addition, Chris Shepherd will be curating at Latitude and bringing an afternoon of shorts, films, music and multitalented artists.

The Halloween Music And Film Club

Once again, the tent will open its doors to the Halloween Music And Film Club which will bring a full schedule of specifically chosen shorts, art and silent films and visuals, accompanied by live music, videos, dancers and DJ’s.

PostSecret

Latitude is pleased to announce that the internationally renowned art exhibition PostSecret is coming to the Music & Film Arena. Festival goers are invited to submit their own post secret to the exhibition. In addition there will be a collaborative project with Goldsmiths Film Making student, Mercy Laio, who will be getting up-close and personal and asking people their secrets for a film project exclusively for Latitude. The award winning blog and art project www.postsecret.com was set up by Frank Warren in 2005 to massive critical acclaim and soon developed a huge international following of contributors and fans. The concept is simple; people from all backgrounds and nationalities are invited to send creatively decorated postcards bearing true secrets that have never before been revealed. The project will extend into an experience within the Arena that will be both highly visual as well as thought provoking.

‘Holocaust Tourism’

Latitude welcomes a fantastic showing of the poignant and searching documentary film ‘Holocaust Tourism’ by award-winning Glasgow film director Jes Benstock. In ‘Holocaust Tourism’ Benstock talks to a number of people involved in the tourist industry and conveys it with animation to help uncover the way tourism and tourists are changing the way we understand the complex past. Benstock wanted to "make something which would help people understand the complexity of what is happening to the memory of the Holocaust. I believe it's happening to every human tragedy in living memory - the "heritage" style repackaging of history." If some critics sneer that Michael Moore is a documentarian-turned-comedian, Jes has made the alternative journey. A whistle-stop tour from Auschwitz hot-dogs to Krakow's kitsch Judaica that asks, how is dark tourism changing history? Jes Benstock’s Holocaust Tourism won the NPA Shorts 06/07 Jury Award and has been showcased at many prestigious film festivals around the word.

Future Cinema Live

The Music & Film Arena will be positively buzzing with unique and cutting edge events that shake up the traditional cinema experience courtesy of Future Cinema. By fusing film with music, theatre and performance, these wondrously atmospheric and highly interactive cinematic experiences are famed for taking audiences on a multi-sensory ride and have become “don't miss” events all across the UK. The Guardian has declared them as “The True Pioneers of petit cinema” and Time Out has described these events as “The Nightlife of your dreams.” Exclusively for Latitude, Future Cinema has created Future Cinema Live - a very different and unique cinema show. Live bands, a classic feature rescored, theatre performers, and the very best films from Future Shorts are all in the mix to create a completely immersive live film experience.

Lautrec’s 2001: A Dubstep Odyssey.

Surrender your mind and senses to the sonic and visual rush of Lautrec’s 2001: A Dubstep Odyssey. The “delicious sampledelics” of Lautrec brings to the Music & Film Arena a collaboration between the Lautrec laptop wizardry and the post-rock instrumentalism of SonVer’s electric cello, guitar, percussion, bass and visuals. A dubstep-beat driven mix of multi-layered textures and melodies all set to some of the most iconic space images ever committed to celluloid, provided by Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’.

Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring

The emerging talent of Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring bring their melodic pop perfection to Latitude. They will be performing alongside VJ Buzzard who will be creating live visuals, baking cakes (to be handed out to the audience!), painting pictures and showering the band with flowers and good vibes to help kick off Latitude 2008.

George Pringle

Plus, playing as part of Chris Shepherd’s afternoon of shorts, films, music and multi-talented artists, the delightful and “spoken word queen of now”, George Pringle brings home-spun pop-poetry to Latitude. A ‘diseuse’ (a female performer of monologues) George makes electronic music on her iBook G4, which she calls Truman, recites poetry over the tracks and incorporates projections of her photo journals into her live shows. Her performances have been described as “just plain charming” by Music Week and simply “dead funny and brilliantly aware” by Time Out.