Music @ Film Fest Gent

Music Concerts

1. World Soundtrack Awards

As usual, Film Fest Gent will have a festive conclusion with the World Soundtrack Awards on Saturday 25 October. The guest of honour for the 14th anniversary of the WSA will be American film composer and former drummer of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers Cliff Martinez. Make sure to get your tickets here.

2. Rota/Fellini

On Thursday 23 October, music centre De Bijloke will be the venue for the Rota/Fellini concert, which will feature symphonic music from the movies of the director of ‘La Dolce Vita’ and ‘La Strada’ performed by Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by maestro Dirk Brossé. Get your tickets here.

Films in the Sound and Vision-section

1. 20,000 Days on Earth

Fiction and drama are intertwined in this movie, which follows Nick Cave for twenty-four hours. Winner of the Documentary Award at Sundance Film Festival, it has been praised by Rob Nelson from Variety: "This innovative study of Nick Cave playfully disguises itself as fiction while more than fulfilling the requirements of a biographical documentary".

2. Dance! Dance! Dance! (Film Concert: Arsenal)

This extraordinary show of Arsenal, created to tie in with their new album 'Furu', will have its world premiere on 22 October 2014 at Film Fest Gent in collaboration with Vooruit.

'Dance! Dance! Dance!' has become an impressive mood board for their new album, Furu. The film concert will combine unreleased soundtrack material with more familiar tracks by Arsenal. Arsenal's love for images has been known for quite some time and this year it resulted in a unique film, set in Japan. Hendrik Willemyns wrote and produced the project in collaboration with the Japanese director Ken Ochiai.

3. Get on Up

"The Founding Father of Funk", "the Godfather of Soul", "Mr Dynamite", "Soul Brother No. 1", "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business", Mr James Brown! Born in a wooden hut and raised in extreme poverty, James Brown was in prison before his eighteenth birthday. It was there that he began to sing gospel and, upon his release, he climbed his obstinate way to success.

4. Platina Blues

A touching confrontation with death. The frontman of the Dutch band The Scene describes a night in the hospital. When the morphine starts kicking in, the fear of death also sets in. In his hallucinations, he travels across a web of memories, images and emotions, until he almost reaches a state of resignation. A new day begins. Or is it heaven?

5. Soul Boys of the Western World with Spandau Ballet

Soul Boys of the Western World is a journey through the 1980s and beyond; the story of a band, an era and how one small gathering of outsiders in London shaped the entire world's view of music and fashion. The film is not only a fascinating, often hard-hitting social and cultural document of the time, but a brutally honest story of how friendships can be won, lost and ultimately regained.

Legendary band Spandau Ballet (known from hits like ‘True’ ‘Gold’, ‘Through The Barricades’ and many more) will be giving an exclusive live set in Vooruit during Film Fest Gent! After the screening of ‘Soul Boys of the Western World’ the band will take over the scene of the Theaterhall for their first performance ever in Ghent and their first Belgian performance since 2010.

6. Visitors

This documentary is a portrait of humanity's dependence on technology. Shot in stunning black and white 4K digital resolution. Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian, calls it "a graceful, dreamlike experience". Simon Crook from Empire Magazine describes it as "strange and surreal but with moments of real beauty".

7. Whiplash

A young jazz drummer is pushed to his limits by the ruthless band conductor at his school. The film won the Audience and Grand Jury awards at the Sundance Film Festival and at Deauville Film Festival. It features the American Indie's rising star Miles Teller, who gives his best performance to date as the young drummer, alongside J.K. Simmons, who is as fearsome as ever as the conductor.

Film and concerts

1. Chaplin's The Circus

This year, we are celebrating the 100-year anniversary of ‘The Tramp’ with a unique family movie concert of Chaplin’s ‘The Circus’ presented by Proximus and with the support of Universiteit Gent. The silent classic will be shown on 26 October at Kuipke and will have live music performed by an orchestra conducted by maestro Dirk Brossé. Buy your tickets here.

2. Goblin plays 'Suspiria'

During Film Fest Gent the Italian prog-rock band Goblin will be playing live music during the screening of the surreal horror classic "Suspiria" at Vooruit on Saturday 18 October.

Suspiria is without a doubt the most timeless of all their soundtracks; from ghostly interludes to intense 'over the top' prog eruptions. Goblin wrote the soundtrack for the film before it even went into production and so Argento made sure image and sound formed one organic whole. Goblin chief and keyboard player Claudio Simonetti introduced new band members to Goblin and they will be playing the soundtrack live to the screening of "Suspiria".

3. Legowelt plays 'Aguirre der Zorn Gottes'

In the 16th century, the ruthless and insane Don Lope de Aguirre leads a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado. Vincent Canby was lyrical in The New York Times: "Absolutely stunning. Mr. Herzog views all the proceedings with fixed detachment. He remains cool. He takes no sides. He may even be slightly amused. This is a splendid and haunting work".

Danny Wolfers is a Dutch electronica producer and DJ who became renowned globally under the name Legowelt. At the request of Filmfestival Gent, Vooruit and Ghent's internet livestream tv station / art collective Stroom, Wolfers composed a new soundtrack for one of his favorite films; "Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes". Once described as an extremely intense and colorful live painting, this film tells the story of an obsessive and insane quest for the secret golden city of El Dorado throughout the inhospitable jungles of the Amazon rain forest.