Category: NPP2023

It was Syd who gave Pink Floyd their moniker by combining the names of two obscure blues players – Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

Intimate interviews with band members David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Roger Waters along with Pete Townsend and others, uncover Barrett’s ongoing impact on the group – markedly their sound and image – including his inspiration on worldwide hits The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, written in tribute to him. Syd’s music influenced a generation of musicians as his songs were covered by David Bowie among others.

“Syd Barrett was irresistibly charismatic, but this crazy diamond didn’t shine for long, as this comprehensive portrait shows.”— Glenn Kenny, The New York Times

IN ASSOCIATION WITH  THE THIN AIR

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

The date is Saturday evening on 13 November 1976, the place is TVP Studio in Warsaw, Poland, the occasion is a television special by the greatest pop band on earth ABBA.

At the height of their powers, the fab four arrived in Warsaw to promote their new album Arrival behind the Iron Curtain on Polish television.

There’s a strange documentary about their trip, including a short in flight interview plus ABBA performing almost all new songs from the new album plus a few belters from the back catalogue.

Join us for this gloriously kitsch snapshot of a byegone era of broadcasting, peppered with rare footage and rarer outfits. Not to mention a cavalcade of the most enduring songs in the modern pop canon, or your Money, Money, Money back!

Afterwards join resident ABBAteurs – The Stalemates, for an audiovisual celebration of the music of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

An instant classic on its original release over 40 years ago, this is a powerful documentary about the men and women who pioneered African-American gospel music. And where better to show this classic than in the evocative surroundings of Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church?

Widely praised upon its release in 1982; the late Roger Ebert called it “One of the most joyful movies I’ve ever seen.”

A moving mix of concert film and documentary, this singular exploration follows the rich history of gospel music in America through the testimony of two towering figures who lived it, composer Thomas A. Dorsey and singer Willie Mae Ford Smith.

Add performances by such greats as Delois Barrett Campbell and The Barrett Sisters, Zella Jackson Price, and The O’Neal Twins, and the result is an acclaimed, joy-filled celebration.

Tickets £8.00

Doors 7.30pm, Unreserved Seating

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

We’re teaming up with our partners at The Avenue Cinema for a series of N Irish premieres at Now Press Play.  Enjoy our films in the luxurious art deco surroundings of the Avenue Cinema, with big comfy chairs and food and drink service to seat!   

(dir. Bob Gallagher 2023)

When singers Ian Lynch (Lankum), Ye Vagabonds and The Henry Girls were invited to create their own interpretations of songs from the Inishowen Song Project, they ended up arranging and singing six songs from Clonmany and Buncrana singers from the famed Inishowen Peninsula.

Captured in this beautiful film by award winning filmmaker Bob Gallagher, audiences are transported to a richly evocative world of local singers and song, documented over 40 years from within the community itself. Framed within the stunning landscape of the area, these new performances, atmospheric archival recordings, and interviews with key community figures, demonstrate how songs pass from singer to singer, while also examining the question of why we sing.

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

We’re teaming up with our partners at The Avenue Cinema for a series of N Irish premieres at Now Press Play.  Enjoy our films in the luxurious art deco surroundings of the Avenue Cinema, with big comfy chairs and food and drink service to seat!  

It’s not every day an acclaimed documentary about a heavy metal god gets made.

This much-celebrated career-spanning film follows one of rock and metal’s greatest all-time vocalists – Ronnie James Dio’s journey from his childhood days in upstate New York, through his iconic turns in Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio, to his death in 2010.

At turns familiar, illuminating and even laugh-out-loud funny (such as photographer Gene Kirkland’s account of shooting the band photo for the Holy Diver album), Dreamers Never Die is a well-paced and engaging ride from start-to-finish.

Condemned by religious groups and misunderstood by conservative parents, Dio emerges as a righteous messenger inspiring an entire generation of rockers to believe in themselves and chase their dreams. Their metal dreams…

“Illuminating, funny and occasionally brutally honest, Dio: Dreamers Never Die is an insightful portrait of one of metal’s most beloved figures” Louder Sound

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

We all love Devo, sure. And we all love Neil Young, mos def. But what about Devo and Neil Young performing “Hey Hey My My” together? Throw in David Lynch luminaries Dean Stockwell & Russ Tamblyn, a bit of Dennis Hopper at his most deranged and a large helping of hyper-real visual storytelling and you’ve got yourself Human Highway.

It’s a movie one critic described as “The Wizard of Oz on acid”. Directed and produced by Young himself (under the soubriquet Bernard Shakey) Human Highway has to be seen to be believed.

It’s the place were day-glo nightmares converge with pop trash and yet somehow, it all works. Did we also mention that it’s very very funny? Panned on its initial release, but subsequently critically reassessed, Human Highway is the missing link between John Waters and Tim Burton.

Featuring Devo as “Nuclear Garbagepersons”. Need we say more?

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

Initially banned on its release, Weekender – the film of Flowered Up’s classic acid house cri de cœur – is today hailed as one of the most innovative music films ever made.

Now WIZ’s pioneering meditation on the British rave experience is celebrated in I Am Weekender, Chloé Raunet’s documentary about the film’s making, impact and legacy, with contributions from Irvine Welsh, Jeremy Deller, Lynne Ramsay, Bobby Gillespie, Clive Langer, Mark Moore, Róisín Murphy, Annie Nightingale, Shaun Ryder, David Holmes, Roy the Roach and more.

Once described as ‘the Citizen Kane of acid house’, Weekender, the film that started it all, is also included here in a brand new 2K restoration.

“Feels like a shot of the street”- Lou Reed

“Without Weekender there’d be no Trainspotting”-Danny Boyle

“Crazy, hedonistic, light and dark”- Lynne Ramsay

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

Oh the thrill of it all! Join us for a double-bill of rare and glamorous archival glory, featuring Brian Eno and his former band Roxy Music, led by namesake and one-time nemesis Bryan Ferry.

ENO (30 MINS) is a short BBC documentary film from 1973, directed by Alfons Sinniger. It follows synth brat Brian Eno shortly after his departure from Roxy Music. The documentary features amazing footage of the man himself swaggering about London, plus recording sessions for Eno’s debut record and stone-cold classic “Here come the Warm Jets” that was recorded in twelve days at Majestic Studios in London during September 1973.

The fascinating ROXETTE (30 mins) is where fine art meets mod cool. It follows a group of students at Manchester Polytechnic in 1978, whose personal style and social lives were dedicated to the music of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. The art student ‘stars’ of the film – inhabitants of the new pop sensibility that Roxy created, are filmed in a manner that emphasizes the high glamour of their sub-cultural creation against the harsher backdrop of Salford.  All styles served here…

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

What better way to celebrate the approaching 40^th anniversary of Talking Head’s seminal Stop Making Sense concert movie than a screening of a concert from their (whisper it) EVEN BETTER Remain in Light tour of 1981?

David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison were at the peak of their powers when they entered the studio with Brian Eno in 1980 to record Remain in Light; an album that’s on most people’s greatest-ever list.

The ensuing tour featuring some of the best session players in tow is the stuff of legend now. Join us for scintillating footage of the European leg of that tour, plus a rare screening of the excellent documentary made at the same time. Book early to avoid disappointment, or you just might end up asking yourself, “My God, what have I done?”.

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Short and oh so sweet.

John Heyn and Jeff Krulik filmed Judas Priest fans in a concert arena parking lot in suburban Maryland. Thirty years later, Heavy Metal Parking Lot is hailed as one the greatest rock documentaries ever. It’s a definitive cultural touchstone for the 1980s metal scene: spandex, big hair, denim, mullets, muscle cars, and beer.

Welcome to the World of Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Hell Yeah!

In Bed with Chris Needham.

Quite simply the greatest documentary video diary ever made…

In 1992, Chris Needham was a bored 17-year-old thrash metal freak with a mullet, a bumfluff moustache, lots of spots, the most awkward girlfriend of all time and a bedroom in his parents’ house in Loughborough.

During the twenty years since it was made for the BBC’s Video Diaries strand, In Bed With Chris Needham has become the stuff of legend; not just for its wealth of quotable lines, but because it plugs you straight into the sensation of being a teenager at battle with the world.

“Chris has been absolutely lacerated by the puberty stick, and is about to play his first gig with his band, Manslaughter. The problem is, they’re complete rammel.Between their first painful attempts to stand musically upright and their debut gig, Chris takes the time to defend Metal and Youth, unleashes torrents of adolescent venom upon ‘old bastards’, ‘Chart Music’, teachers, and Neighbours, conducts a relationship with his girlfriend in excruciating silence, gets hassled by Mr Taggart and His Amazing Shirt, and goes fishing.”   – Al Needham (no relation), Leftlion

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.

A celebratory showcase of the life, music and activism of a trailblazing artist who employed his talents to challenge the status quo and inspire change.

Max Roach was one of the towering figures of jazz, whose collaborations, as both drummer and composer, chart the history of the form, from his work with Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, to his own pioneering 1950s quintet with Clifford Brown.

Samuel Pollard and Ben Shapiro’s insightful film highlights Roach’s innovative approach to music – viewing it as part of a broader concept of sound – alongside his ability to remain ahead of his time, often at the risk of commercial failure.

It features interviews with notable figures, including Sonny Rollins, Questlove, Harry Belafonte, as well as his family and many others, shedding light and offering diverse perspectives on Roach’s life, his career, legacy and enduring influence.

This event is supported by Film Hub NI, awarding funds from the National Lottery through the BFI Film Audience Network.