
Fred Frith
Sound
Biography
English musician, composer and professor, who is known for his avant-garde works involving electric guitars, film soundtracks and using improvisations in his music. He first gained prominence as a member of progressive rock band Henry Cow, in the 1970s, and collaborated with various musicians and bands throughout his career. Since the 1980s, he has composed music for film, theatre and dance. In addition, he was Professor of Composition in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California until his retirement in 2018.
Known For

An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.
Before Sunrise

England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.
Orlando

A schoolboy uses his cellphone camera to shoot intimate interviews with people working at a New York fashion house and secretly posts them on the internet. Result: a bitterly funny expose of an industry in crisis, during a week in which an accident on the runway becomes a murder investigation, and denial leads to devastation.
Rage

15-year-old Elfie literally and metaphorically inhabits a no-man’s-land between the two Germanies shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The film deploys a neorealist aesthetic to reinforce the difficulties confronting the girl, and by inference, Germany.
Eastern Cross

On a trip to Paris Sally meets Pablo, a tango dancer. He starts teaching her to dance then she returns to London to work on some "projects". She visits Buenos Aires and learns more from Pablo's friends. Sally and Pablo meet again but this time their relationship changes, she realises they want different things from each other. On a trip to Buenos Aires they cement their friendship.
The Tango Lesson

Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.
Rivers and Tides

Filmmaker Peter Mettler embarks on a mission that takes him around the world. He is determined to record the diverse modes of transcendence that people in different cultures adopt in order to live life to the fullest. As he traverses civilization and wilderness and encounters a range of lifestyles and ideas, the filmmaker's mind-expanding trip around the world grows into a poem of images and sounds, reflecting the fragmented but alluring worlds it attempts to capture.
Gambling, Gods and LSD

The artist Johanna Faust is about to leave her children to finally devote herself to her art again. A vague memory comes to her mind: Didn't her grandmother do the same thing, with terrible consequences? The intimate road movie tells of lost mothers and abandoned children, of the temptations and the price of self-fulfilment, of the abysses of motherhood and of the deep longing for another life.
I'll be your mirror

An avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith.
Step Across the Border
'Between Two Worlds' is a personal exploration of the community and family divisions that are redefining American Jewish identity and politics. The filmmakers own families are battlegrounds over loyalty to Israel, interpretations of the Holocaust, intermarriage and a conversion to Islam, and a secret communist past. Filmed in the United States and Israel, this first person documentary begins with a near riot at a Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco, shows an agonizing battle over divestment from Israel on a university campus, and reveals how hard it is for minorities in America to maintain ethnic identity in the face of generational change. Who speaks for a divided community at the crossroads? 'Between Two Worlds' has the exhilarating energy and fierce commitment of Jewish conversation itself.
Between Two Worlds

Filmmakers Nicolaus Humbert and Werner Penzel examine the nature of nomadic existence in this documentary, from the literal nomads of North Africa to the more metaphorical kind of wanderer, such as American poet and ex-pat Robert Lax. Humbert and Penzel focus especially on the nomad's paradoxical ability to fully inhabit every moment while remaining coolly detached from specific locales and anxious thoughts about the past or future.
Middle of the Moment
No description available.
Drei gegen Troja

A rare peek into the working methods of John Zorn. Filmed over a ten year period, this documentary includes live footage of Masada, Naked City, Cobra, as well as improvisations, his classical work and rare interviews. A prize winner at European festivals, this film documents Heuermann's very personal, fifteen year odyssey with the music of John Zorn.
A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn

A documentary which explores the connections among sound, rhythm, time, and the body by following percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who is nearly deaf.
Touch the Sound

Satellite dish salesman Gus experiences some life-altering changes when he meets performance artist Lucy in this visually poetic fantasy. After Lucy vanishes, leaving a puzzling note, Gus goes on a quest for the mysterious woman. Moving from his meticulous life in a technologically advanced world into the spontaneity of nature, Gus learns some important lessons and begins to trust his own instincts.
The Top of His Head

No description available.
Attwenger Adventure

Little Lieutenant is a look back at the late Weimar era with its struggles and celebrations leading up to world war, a period piece. Scored to John Zorn's arrangement of the Kurt Weill song, "Little Lieutenant of the Loving God", and drawing its imagery both from the original song and its somewhat idiosyncratic rearrangement, the film presents an internal reading of Silvers' solo scored to the same musical piece, "Along the Skid Mark of Recorded History".
Little Lieutenant

Hidden in the wooded mountains on the west coast of Japan lies the small Zen monastery Antaiji. A young woman sets off to immerse herself through autumn, winter and spring in the adventures of monastic life. The young woman is Sabine Timoteo from Switzerland. The abbot of the monastery is Muho Noelke, born in Berlin. An interplay between the philosophy of the Japanese Zen master Kodo Sawaki and the surprises brought forth by everyday life.
Zen for Nothing
John Zorn: alto sax, vocals Bill Frisell: guitar Wayne Horvitz: keyboards, piano Fred Frith: bass Joey Baron: drums
John Zorn's Naked City: Montreux Jazz Festival 1990

When Bill Babbitt realizes his brother Manny has committed a crime he agonizes over his decision to call the police.