Q&A with Director Steve Kemsley hosted by Joe Nawaz following the screening.

When filmmaker Steve Kemsley was 16, he was crazy about Haircut 100, just like hundreds of thousands of fans.

Then, within a year of releasing their debut album, the band split. Four decades later, Steve set out to uncover why. Three years in the making, this feature-length documentary follows the band from the recording studio to Glastonbury, through a major UK tour, and across the Atlantic to America.

Haircut 100 – Take That Situation (and put it right) is a story of music, enduring friendship, and what time can-and cannot-change. If you loved the band and the era, this film is for you: a joyous romp through ’80s pop that will make you laugh, cry, and relive memories half-forgotten.

The late-’60s avant-garde rock band Can gets a feature-length tribute with this affectionate documentary chronicling their odd inception and pioneering career.

In CAN – The Documentary, the remaining band members are interviewed amidst a meticulously culled collage of archival footage from vintage talk shows, historic concerts, and television appearances. Together, they paint an intimate portrait of a group that always remained happily on the sidelines of mass appeal—fearlessly mixing street music, jazz, folk, and rock into a sometimes poppy, sometimes abstract sonic stew.

The film also comprehensively analyses the band’s monumental, enduring influence on seminal alternative acts such as Sonic Youth and Talking Heads.

 

Documentary screening 

“Half of a film is sound.” — David Lynch

For David Lynch, sound was never an accompaniment to the image—it was the image’s unseen force. The Sound of David Lynch is a cinematic journey into the haunting sonic landscapes that define one of cinema’s most visionary filmmakers, exploring how music, noise and silence shape emotion, memory and dream.

Through iconic sequences from Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, alongside rare interviews and documentary excerpts from The Sound of Lynch and Eraserhead Stories, the event reveals the creative process behind Lynch’s unmistakable audio universe.

Discover the groundbreaking collaborations that made these worlds possible: the unsettling industrial soundscapes of sound designer Alan Splet; the lush, melancholic scores of composer Angelo Badalamenti; the dream-pop textures of Julee Cruise; the hypnotic musical performances curated by longtime music supervisor Dean Hurley; and Lynch’s own work as composer, musician and sound artist.

This documentary explores how Lynch transformed sound into a narrative language—one capable of expressing the uncanny, the sublime and the unknowable.

This screening is in collaboration with Normal Cinema Club and Reverie Cineclub.

From up on high, the Beatles once decreed that their favourite American artist was NILSSON. But who is Nilsson? What does Nilsson do? Does he even have a first name?

Harry Nilsson, the silken-voiced singer behind Everybody’s Talkin’, Without You, Coconut & much much more, was many things at once, but at one point he was the writer and composer of animated film THE POINT.

Framed as a bedtime fable, The Point takes place in The Land of Point, where everything has a Point. Except Oblio, a young boy with a freakishly round head. Incapable of fitting in, Oblio is exiled to the Pointless Forest with his dog Arrow, where he embarks on a truly pointed journey of self-discovery. <

Believe it or not, the film was inspired by an LSD trip undergone by Nilsson. The film is a visual treat featuring a scrappy yet beautiful hand-drawn style which leans into Nilsson’s childlike yet dreamily wondrous worldview. The score features Harry at his most playful, with tracks like Me and My Arrow that will stick in your head for days.

Before the film, enjoy a selection of handpicked televised performances from Nilsson, who notoriously never performed live.

———————————-

Written and composed by silken-voiced singer Harry Nilsson, The Point takes place in The Land of Point, where everything has a Point. Except Oblio, a young boy with a freakishly round head. Incapable of fitting in, Oblio is exiled to the Pointless Forest with his dog Arrow, where he embarks on a truly pointed journey of self-discovery. Beautifully animated and featuring some of Nilsson’s best songs, this is the nicest odyssey you will see in cinemas all year.

A celebration of the women who turned machines into music.

Before synthesizers became pop stars and electronic music filled dancefloors, a group of visionary women were already experimenting with machines, electricity, tape, oscillators and sound — pushing music into places it had never been before.

Lisa Rovner’s electrifying documentary Sisters with Transistors uncovers the remarkable, and often overlooked, history of the women who helped invent electronic music.

From Delia Derbyshire, whose groundbreaking work helped create the iconic Doctor Who theme, to Daphne Oram, Suzanne Ciani, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Spiegel, Bebe Barron, Clara Rockmore and others, the film traces a generation of composers and experimentalists who embraced new technologies as tools of freedom and transformation.

Narrated by electronic music legend Laurie Anderson, Sisters with Transistors is a celebration of women who refused to accept the boundaries of what music was supposed to be — creating strange, beautiful and revolutionary sounds in a world that wasn’t always ready to hear them.

The film asks a bigger question, too: why are so many of the women who helped shape modern music still missing from its history?

This film is part of Now Press Play. The 2026 NPP programme celebrates women in music on screen. 

Now Press Play 2026 is  supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funding from the National Lottery

The untold story of Big Mama Thornton, the groundbreaking blueswoman whose voice launched legends, defied conventions, and carved her place in music history on her own uncompromising terms.

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was a towering force in American music for over forty years. Born in rural Alabama, she defied gender norms with her imposing stature, masculine dress, and commanding stage presence.

“Hound Dog,” written specifically for her, became a #1 R&B hit in 1952, yet she struggled for fair recognition in the years that followed. Rediscovered during the 1960s blues revival, she electrified audiences in the U.S. and Europe, and her song “Ball & Chain” helped launch Janis Joplin’s career.

Living hard and touring relentlessly, Thornton died at 57, leaving behind an indelible musical legacy.

Now Press Play 2026 is  supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funding from the National Lottery

Robert Clem| US| 2025| 88 min

A study of Irish Traditional Music and Culture in the 1970s. 
Join us for a special screening of the landmark 1973 French documentary.

Directed by Claude Fleouter and Roviros Manthoulis, this captivating film offers a poetic, deep-dive exploration of Irish history, identity, and resilience through the powerful lens of its native music.   The film includes spellbinding performances by undisputed masters of the traditional scene, including Planxty, Willie Clancy, Seán Ó Riada, Packie Russell, and Tony MacMahon.

Made in 1973 for French television, Ireland: A Nation’s Memory is a remarkable journey through Irish culture, language and musical tradition at a moment of profound change.

From the rocky landscapes of the west, where the Irish language survived centuries of British occupation, to the crowded pubs and late-night sessions of Cork, the film explores how a nation’s identity found its way into song and music.< Along the way, we encounter some of the defining figures of Irish traditional music, including the pioneering composer and arranger Seán Ó Riada and legendary Clare piper Willie Clancy, as well as the musicians, singers and communities who kept the tradition alive. 

A fascinating time capsule of Irish musical culture, and a rare glimpse of some of its most influential figures at work.

The Fall meets post-punk dance meets cinema verité – with a smattering of Leigh Bowery! 40 years on, Hail The New Puritan still exhilarates and dazzles.

It’s a docu-fantasy which stars dance superstar Michael Clarke – in an incredible and muscular series of performances. The film is a vivid invocation of the decadence and excess of the 1980s post-punk London subculture. It’s also a time capsule of a lost time and place. Filmmaker Charles Atlas seamlessly integrates Clarkes extraordinary presence into the narrative of the film, taking in music, clubs and fashion of the era.

From the surreal opening dream sequence to the final solo dance – Hail The New Puritan is mesmerising – all aided and abetted by THAT soundtrack. “The music of the Fall gives me a broader canvas to make whatever I want to” said Clarke at the time. He wasn’t wrong…

Now Press Play 2026 is  supported byFilm Hub NI, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funding from the National Lottery

Director/Editor: Charles Atlas. Choreography: Michael Clark. Dancers: Gaby Agis, Leslie Bryant (Les Child), Michael Clark, Matthew Hawkins, Julie Hood, Ellen van Schuylenburch. With: Leigh Bowery, Nicola Bowery, Michael Clark, Anthony Doughty, Mark E. Smith, Brix Smith, Sue Tilley. Music: Glenn Branca, The Fall, Bruce Gilbert, Jeffrey Hinton. Camera: John Simmons. Producer: Jolyon Wimhurst. Special Thanks: Dave Baby, Chisenhale Dance Space, The Clarendon, R.K. Studios, Henry Stein.

1985-86, 84:47 min, colour, sound, 16 mm film on video

The concert documentary “Home Again,” presents musical icon Carole King’s triumphant May 26, 1973 homecoming concert on The Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Park before an estimated audience of 100,000.

Directed by George Scott and produced by Lou Adler and John McDermott, the film presents the complete multi-camera 16mm footage filmed and recorded by Adler in 1973 but never before released.

the complete performance footage is the behind the scenes story of King’s remarkable transformation from an in demand, staff songwriter beloved for such timeless Goffin and King classics as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” to an iconic artist in her own right.

The May 1973 performance captured King at her critical and commercial peak, basking in the enormous popularity of her definitive album Tapestry.

Running Time:80 min. Director:George Scott

Join your host (and Bula Quo survivor) Joe Nawaz as we set sail for Fiji bedecked in double denim

In a breathtaking and unexpected thespianic turn, Status Quo legends Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt play Status Quo legends Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt. Bula Quo finds the band – for reasons that aren’t entirely clear – on the exotic island of Fiji where – again for unclear reasons -they become embroiled with the notorious local Fiji mafia in a baffling, sun-drenched and completely tax deductible comedy crime flick.

“Bula Quo is the ultimate high-octane rock ’n’ roll comedy caper” says the review in the band’s fanzine Quotations. This is a lie.

If you aren’t left thinking WTF are Status Quo being chased by crime lords led by 90s comedian Jon Lovitz on a tropical island in a film directed by the man who brought us the novel “Cruise Ship Heist”, then you aren’t watching Bula Quo.

Expect puzzlingly slow chases in golf carts, jet skis, and sea-planes, geriatric punch-ups and best of all the Quo back catalogue with added ukulele. Now repeat after us : “Ah Bula Bula Quo!”

“Amiable cobblers that beautifully marries wacky slapstick action with the band’s iconic, foot-stomping three-chord riffs.” The Observer

Now Press Play 2026 is  supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, awarding funding from the National Lottery

Alice Coltrane: Black Journal (1970) — 20 mins

Shot just three years after John Coltrane’s death, this intimate National Educational Television documentary finds Alice Coltrane at home with her children. It captures a pivotal moment as she develops the spiritual, harp-led sound that would come to define her extraordinary music throughout the 1970s.

Jazz Is Our Religion (1972) — 50 mins

Directed by John Jeremy, this poetic and powerful film captures the raw realities of jazz through striking photography, music and intimate testimony. Featuring the Johnny Griffin Quintet, alongside voices including Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke and Bill Evans, it explores the struggles behind the music. Radical jazz poetry from Langston Hughes and Ted Joans adds another layer to this vivid portrait of the jazz life.

 

This screening  celebrates  the immersive power of Bob Dylan’s legendary, melancholic soundtrack.

Directed by Sam Peckinpah, this revisionist Western follows an aging, former outlaw-turned-sheriff, Pat Garrett (James Coburn), who is hired by wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to track down and kill his former friend, the unrepentant outlaw Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson).

Tracks like “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and the haunting “Billy” variations built directly into the film’s narrative. The screening highlights the brilliant studio chemistry of the all-star musicians Dylan assembled for the recording sessions, featuring Dylan himself on acoustic guitar, vocals, and harmonica, alongside guitar legend Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, bassist Booker T. Jones, drummer Jim Keltner, and multi-instrumentalist Bruce Langhorne on guitar and fiddle.

 

A uniquely Princely affair,an intensely personal fusion of cinema, music, fantasy and desire.

It’s been four decades since the bonkers old world musical fantasy that is Under The Cherry Moon dropped in cinemas to slackened jaws and hoots of derision. This was Prince at the height of his pomp, drunk on success and going too far, people said.

The fact that the diminutive purple one co-wrote, scored, directed and starred in Under the Cherry Moon smacked of overreach – most especially coming from a black artist – and the critics punished him for it.

But 40 years later without all that nonsense, what we discover is a dreamlike, playfully knowing and occasional very stylish homage to the age of silent and classic cinema. It’s a campy, knowingly melodramatic delight – with a heavyweight cast including Kristen Scott Thomas and Steven Berkoff, in another of his classic grotesque baddie roles. And let’s not forget those tunes…

Ambitious, musically brilliant and – yes – a little bit bonkers – we invite you once more to die in his arms, Under the Cherry Moon.

Give the gift of live music, culture and unforgettable nights out.

Want to share the joy of OTL and CQAF with someone special? Pick up a gift voucher and let them choose their perfect event. We’ll send them a voucher code to use when booking tickets through our website.

Simple to give. Brilliant to receive. And best of all, every voucher helps support the ongoing sustainability of the festival