Canadian Music Week Film Fest 2014

Canadian Music Week is a 5 day music industry conference that features a large number of performances across Toronto. This year marks the 7th edition of the accompanying CMW Film Festival, a presentation of special screenings and premieres with a musical influence. Previous year’s festivals have featured films like Spring Breakers and the Paul Simon documentary Under African Skies. The lineup this year is highlighted by the Toronto Premiere of Frank, the comedy starring Michael Fassbender as an avant-garde band leader that wears a paper mache head. Here is this year’s lineup and showtime information. All films are being shown at The Royal Cinema.

Finding Fela! – Opening Film, May 8 at 6:30pm

“Finding Fela tells the story of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s life, his music, his social and political importance. He created a new musical movement, Afrobeat, using that forum to express his revolutionary political opinions against the dictatorial Nigerian government of the1970s and 1980s. His influence helped bring a change towards democracy in Nigeria and promoted Pan Africanist politics to the world. The power and potency of Fela’s message is completely current today and is expressed in the political movements of oppressed people, embracing Fela’s music and message in their struggle for freedom.”

Jimi: All is by My Side – May 8 at 9:15pm

“OutKast’s André Benjamin stars as Jimi Hendrix in this revealing biopic from Academy Award winner, John Ridley (12 Years A Slave). Covering a year in Hendrix’s life from 1966-67 as an unknown backup guitarist playing New York’s Cheetah Club to making his mark in London’s music scene up until his Monterey Pop triumph, the film presents an intimate portrait of the sensitive young musician on the verge of becoming a rock legend.”

Breadcrumb Trail – May 9 at 7pm

“Throughout the 1980s, a group of friends in Louisville, Kentucky grew up forming bands, breaking up, and reforming in different configurations. They were playing hardcore shows at ages 10-12, touring with Samhain as 14 year olds, recording for Homestead as Squirelbait at age 15, then formed Slint in their late teens and recorded the classic album Spiderland before they were 21. They broke up before the album’s release, giving no interviews and vanishing into their own shadows. Two decades passed as filmmaker Lance Bangs assembled unseen footage of the teenagers writing and arranging Spiderland as well as the first on camera interviews with the band members and their contemporaries trying to decipher what they had been through. Featuring Slint, Steve Albini, Ian Mackaye, David Grubbs, David Yow, James Murphy and archival material from Will Oldham.”

Looking for Johnny: The Legend of Johnny Thunders – May 9 at 9pm

“With the New York Dolls, his band the Heartbreakers, and solo, Johnny Thunders helped define punk rock with his raw, untamed guitar playing—and his raw, untamed lifestyle, which led to his death from an overdose at the age of 38.”

We Are the Best! – May 10 at 1pm

“Stockholm 1982. We Are the Best is a film about Bobo, Klara and Hedvig. Three 13-year old girls who roam the streets. Who are brave and tough and strong and weak and confused and weird. Who have to take care of themselves way too early. Who heat fish fingers in the toaster when mom is at the pub. Who start a punk band without any instruments, even though everybody says that punk is dead.”

Swim Little Fish Swim – May 10 at 4:30pm

“Set in New York, Swim Little Fish Swim focuses on the domestic life of Leeward (Dustin Guy Defa) and Mary (Brooke Bloom), a young married couple at a crossroads. Mary is a hardworking nurse determined to turn the couple’s lives around while Leeward is a struggling marginal musician who fancies himself a misunderstood artist and New Age visionary. The two can’t even agree on what to name their three-year old daughter. Enter Lilas (Lola Bessis), a 19 year-old French artist trying to make it in New York and escape the shadow of her famous painter mother. When the bubbly young woman moves into the couple’s tiny Chinatown apartment, their already fragile balance is upset even further.”

Miami Connection (w/ #Postmodem) – May 9 at 11:30pm

“Motorcycle ninjas tighten their grip on Florida’s narcotics trade, viciously annihilating anyone who dares move in on their turf. Multi-national martial arts rock band Dragon Sound have had enough, and embark on a roundhouse wreck-wave of crime-crushing justice. When not chasing beach bunnies or performing their hit song “Against the Ninja,” Mark and the boys are kicking and chopping at the drug world’s smelliest underbelly. It’ll take every ounce of their blood and courage, but Dragon Sound can’t stop until they’ve completely destroyed the dealers, the drunk bikers, the kill-crazy ninjas, the middle-aged thugs, the “stupid cocaine”…and the entire MIAMI CONNECTION!!!”

#Postmodem is “A comedic satirical sci-fi pop-musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists. It’s the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with the technological singularity, as told through as series of cinematic tweets.”

Heaven Adores You – May 10 at 7pm

“Heaven Adores You is an intimate, meditative inquiry into the life and music of Elliott Smith (1969 ­ 2003). By threading the music of Elliott Smith through the dense, yet often isolating landscapes of the three major cities he lived in:­­ Portland, New York City, Los Angeles. ­­ Heaven Adores You presents a visual journey and an earnest review of the singer’s prolific songwriting and the impact it continues to have on fans, friends, and fellow musicians.”

Frank – Toronto Premiere, May 10 at 9:30pm

“An offbeat comedy about a young wannabe musician, Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), who finds himself out of his depth when he joins an avant-garde pop band led by the mysterious and enigmatic Frank (Michael Fassbender), a musical genius who hides himself inside a large fake head, and his terrifying bandmate Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal).”

FIlm synopses via Canadian Music Week.

Click here for more movie trailers!