Experimental non-fiction music video (22 minutes) based on footage shot during the dynamic sound recording sessions of Sarmatica's L'viv Lute Tablature Project (due out 2011) in Kyiv, Ukraine. The film is a meditation on the process of music recording, the displacements that occur between visual and audio "tracks," music performance and recording, and between looking and listening. Take Off One Ear! also includes exciting music from this new project by Sarmatica. Completed, not yet premiered.
Watch: Trailer
Take Off One Ear !
Mrii Pro Mynule
Our new documentary about the 2009 Early Music Festival in Lviv, Ukraine, is almost ready!
The Early Music Festival, held annually in Lviv, is practically the only such festival in Ukraine today. In October 2009, it took place for the seventh time.
Our new documentary Mrii pro Mynule uses the festival as an occasion to explore the emerging early music movement in Ukraine, taking a look at both the musical and the material challenges it faces.
Early music in Ukraine has a unique character since it is part of a conscious contemporary effort to create a distinctly Ukrainian national musical style. In their creatively eclectic approach to this project, musicians draw not only on Western early music, but also on folk traditions from Ukraine's many regions, as well as those from other countries. Material resources scarce everywhere, of greatest vitality is a grassroots movement of national self-rediscovery, largely outside of the musical institutions.
An interview with the festival organizer, Roman Stelmashchuk, and selections from concerts by the Polish Orchestra of the 18the Century (Krakow), the ensembles Laude Novella (Åhus), Insula Magica (Novosibirsk), Chorea Kozacky (Kyiv), and solo performers Oleg Timofeyev (lute, seven-string guitar; Iowa City) and Svitlana Shabaltina (harpsichord; Kyiv Conservatory), are supplemented by interviews with performer Taras Kompanichenko, composer Danilo Pertsov, musicologist Prof. Nina Gerasimova-Persidskaia (Kyiv Conservatory) and other members of the early music scene in Ukraine.
The Early Music Festival, held annually in Lviv, is practically the only such festival in Ukraine today. In October 2009, it took place for the seventh time.
Our new documentary Mrii pro Mynule uses the festival as an occasion to explore the emerging early music movement in Ukraine, taking a look at both the musical and the material challenges it faces.
Early music in Ukraine has a unique character since it is part of a conscious contemporary effort to create a distinctly Ukrainian national musical style. In their creatively eclectic approach to this project, musicians draw not only on Western early music, but also on folk traditions from Ukraine's many regions, as well as those from other countries. Material resources scarce everywhere, of greatest vitality is a grassroots movement of national self-rediscovery, largely outside of the musical institutions.
An interview with the festival organizer, Roman Stelmashchuk, and selections from concerts by the Polish Orchestra of the 18the Century (Krakow), the ensembles Laude Novella (Åhus), Insula Magica (Novosibirsk), Chorea Kozacky (Kyiv), and solo performers Oleg Timofeyev (lute, seven-string guitar; Iowa City) and Svitlana Shabaltina (harpsichord; Kyiv Conservatory), are supplemented by interviews with performer Taras Kompanichenko, composer Danilo Pertsov, musicologist Prof. Nina Gerasimova-Persidskaia (Kyiv Conservatory) and other members of the early music scene in Ukraine.
In Development
Two new documentaries are in preparation:
* A documentary on musicians playing Jewish music inspired by the "Klezmer" tradition today. The film will feature interviews with (and music by) a wide range of musicians in Russia (such as the St. Petersburg band Naekhovichi and the Muscovite solo performer Psoi Korolenko), Ukraine, Western Europe, and the U.S. (e.g., Chicago Klezmer and the Timofeyev Ensemble). It will also explore the role archival recordings play as the source for new musical inspirations.
Watch: Preliminary Trailer
* A documentary on Russian Roma (Gypsy) music, featuring guitarists Alexander Kolpakov and Vadim Kolpakov, two outstanding exponents of the art of playing Russian 7-string guitars in the Roma tradition. It will also feature Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hütz.
A trailer for the Roma project will be available soon.
If you have questions, drop us a line!
* A documentary on musicians playing Jewish music inspired by the "Klezmer" tradition today. The film will feature interviews with (and music by) a wide range of musicians in Russia (such as the St. Petersburg band Naekhovichi and the Muscovite solo performer Psoi Korolenko), Ukraine, Western Europe, and the U.S. (e.g., Chicago Klezmer and the Timofeyev Ensemble). It will also explore the role archival recordings play as the source for new musical inspirations.
Watch: Preliminary Trailer
* A documentary on Russian Roma (Gypsy) music, featuring guitarists Alexander Kolpakov and Vadim Kolpakov, two outstanding exponents of the art of playing Russian 7-string guitars in the Roma tradition. It will also feature Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hütz.
A trailer for the Roma project will be available soon.
If you have questions, drop us a line!
