IDFA PLAY Competition for Music Documentary
Bob and the Monster Keirda Bahruth
“It’s a strange environment I’m working in,” says Bob Forrest at the start of this documentary about the former front man of the 1980s cult band Thelonious Monster. The strange environment he’s talking about is the world of drug addiction in Los Angeles, which was a center for all things creative back in the day. It is a world he thoroughly explored. The film contains a wealth of archive material featuring concerts over the years, including disturbing footage of a completely drugged up Forrest rifting around the stage. Together with the numerous interviews, these images paint a picture of Bob Forrest the artist and Bob Forrest the junkie and alcoholic. We learn that Forrest had a tendency towards self-destruction from a young age: “I always wanted to shoot drugs,” he explains. But we also hear that he is a remarkable musical talent, according to musical greats such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis (with whom Forrest sits reminiscing at the kitchen table), Flea, Jane’s Addiction’s Stephen Perkins, and Courtney Love. The latter is one of the people who gained a great deal of support from the now drug-free Forrest in her own struggle with drug addiction.
USA, 2011 HD, color / black-and-white, 85 min
Keirda Bayruth:
Director: Keirda Bahruth Photography: Keirda Bahruth, Rick Ballard Editing: Josh Altman Music: Josh Klinghoffer Production: Keirda Bahruth & Rick Ballard for Shaker Films Executive Production: John Battsek & Andrew Ruhemann for Passion Pictures, Morgan Langley for Langley Productions, Ricky Beck Mahler Screening Copy: Shaker Films Website: www.bobandthemonster.com
Awards: Best Documentary Feature Chicago International Music & Film Festival, Audience Award Best Documentary Gold Coast International Film Festival, Best Music Documentary Kah-Bang Film Festival
USA, 2011 HD, color, 85 min
Robert G. Bralver:
Director: Robert G. Bralver, David Ferino Photography: David Ferino Editing: Robert G. Bralver, David Ferino Production: Jeff Broadway for Gatling Pictures World Sales: The Gersh Agency Screening Copy: Gatling Pictures
directing debut
directing debut
IDFA PLAY Competition for Music Documentary
Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story Robert G. Bralver, David Ferino
EUROPEAN PREMIERE
Mark Sandman, the charismatic singer, bassist, writer, composer and founder of one of the most original bands of the 1990s, Morphine, died in the summer of 1999. It was a fitting end, during a concert in Italy, and shortly after the band had finished recording a new album. In the middle of the grunge era, a band without a guitar was highly eccentric – to say the least – and Morphine’s sober lineup (drums, two-string slide bass guitar and baritone sax), together with their raw mix of jazz, blues and rock, allowed them to create a totally unique sound that brought them cult status in the United States and Europe from the early 1990s on. In this music documentary, the filmmakers investigate Mark Sandman’s place in the world of American pop music, with the help of former band members Dana Colley, Billy Conway and Jerome Deupree, along with musicians from his previous band Treat Her Right, and other musician friends such as Chris Ballew (The Presidents of the United States of America), Mike Watt (The Stooges), Les Claypool and Ben Harper. The film also probes Sandman’s personal history, a subject he never spoke about in public. The loss of his two brothers is said to have been a decisive moment in his musical development, and is a subject that also sheds new light on the trio that were Morphine.
108
Awards: Jury Award Best Music Film Sound Unseen, Best Film Canadian Music Week
directing debut
David Ferino: