The 7th Chicago International Movies & Music Festival (CIMMfest), the annual four-day showcase celebrating the inseparable connection between music and movies, unspools April 16-19, 2015. This year the multi-venue festival expands beyond its home base along the Milwaukee Avenue corridor – from Wicker Park to Logan Square – to include events in North Central, Lakeview, Hyde Park, the Loop and Pilsen. Festival passes and a la carte tickets are currently available at CIMMfest.org
Live scoring programs, during which bands, orchestras and soloists perform a film’s music score live in front of the projected movie, have become a signature draw for CIMMfest. This year’s offerings include movies live-scored by acclaimed composer Marc Ribot (Josef von Sternberg’s The Docks of New York), electronic trio Chandeliers (Hungarian animation Fehérlófia), Sones de México (Eisenste .in’s ˇQue Viva Mexico!) and Saraswathi Ranganathan and New Millennium Orchestra’s Dominic Johnson (India-flavored multimedia event Buster Keaton Goes to Bollywood). And in a special Evening of Music, Film & Wine with Spike Lee, DJ V-Dub spins a mix of music from Spike Lee’s films before the filmmaker himself tells stories about his movies, paired with wines from City Winery.
Movie highlights include the world premiere of John Anderson’s Sam Lay in Bluesland, the US premiere of Chinese punk rock doc Never Release My Fist the North American Premiere of Brasil Bam Bam Bam and the Chicago premieres of Nick Hall’s Joe Strummer doc I Need a Dodge!, Mark Shuman’s Morphine meditation Morphine: Journey of Dreams and Oak Park filmmaker Mike Cramer’s Teenage Ghost Punk. And for – Saturday, 18 April – Metallica’s Robert Trujillo will present the Chicago premiere of his film Jaco!, a tribute to the world’s greatest bass player Jaco Pastorius.
Music highlights of CIMMfest No. 7 include: powerhouse vocalist Lisa Fischer (Twenty Feet From Stardom) for a show at Thalia Hall; a DJ Event featuring sonic architect Hank Shocklee (Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad) and Luftwerk technical director Liviu Pasarein conjunction with the premiere of synthesizer doc 808; and Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars following a showing of their self-titled documentary that launched them into worldwide fame. The Saturday before the festival, CIMMfest presents a Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame Sendoff Party for Chicago drummer extraordinaire Sam Lay.
The movie Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars anchors the Sub-Saharan Cinema sidebar of a half dozen acclaimed films from Africa including Chicago premieres from South Africa, Niger and Mali, and a sneak preview of Andy Jones’ work in progress film I Shot Bi Kidude about the mysterious disappearance of the world’s oldest singer in Tanzania.
Honoree Julien Temple has been selected to receive the third annual BAADASSSS Award for his contributions as a filmmaker, documentarian and music video innovator. Temple chronicled the London punk scene in the ’70s via his relationship with The Sex Pistols and Malcolm McLaren (The Great Rock and Roll Swindle) and made groundbreaking music videos for The Kinks (“Come Dancing”), The Rolling Stones (“Undercover of the Night”) and David Bowie (“Jazzin’ for Blue Jean”) before going on to direct features. As part of the festival, a retrospective of Temple’s films will be shown, including Absolute Beginners on 35mm, The Filth and the Fury (The Sex Pistols), Oil City Confidential (Dr Feelgood), Dave Davies: Kinkdom Come, Ray Davies: Imaginary Man and doc Rio 50 Degrees: Carry on CaRIOca! Previous BAADASSSS Award recipients are director-actor-musician and SXSW co-founder Louis Black.
CIMMfest 2015 occurs in tandem with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events’ nascent Lake FX Summit + Expo, a free conference for artists, creative professionals and entrepreneurs. CIMMfest is programming film aspects for the Lake FX summit at the Chicago Cultural Center, Pilsen and Hyde Park, concurrent with the CIMMfest music and movies programming in Wicker Park/Logan Square/North Center and beyond.
Adam Montgomery, Senior Manager of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival, joins CIMMfest this year as the festival’s Director of Film Programming. Esteemed Britain-based film journalist Andy Markowitz – cofounder of MusicFilmWeb – joins CIMMfest as Associate Film Programmer.