Music and the big screen return to Barcelona in a big way in its encounter with the public, without the restrictions and cuts dictated by the pandemic. The foregoing means that In-Edit returns, as fans have traditionally known it, that is, a great cultural encounter party starring recent music documentaries.
And on this occasion, it is already its twentieth edition, something that indicates the viability of the proposal, the selective criteria and the qualitative bar that have marked it since its inception.
With the Aribau Multicines as the field of operations, from tomorrow, Thursday and until Sunday, November 6, more than fifty documentary feature films will be offered. And good proof of that expectation aroused, can be found today, with the sold out of the opening gala starring the film Meet me in the bathroom (8:30 p.m.), although next Monday there will be a second screening. This documentary by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern revolves around the explosion twenty years ago of a generation of New York groups like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs or LCD Soundsystem.
And it is a start that raises the curtain on a lineup that is always diverse and increasingly open to all kinds of generations, music and political-social-cultural scenarios. And of course, the possibility of seeing everything from authentic blockbusters to documentary films practically shot with a mobile phone or tablet. And another especially noteworthy fact is that in this edition there are more titles directed by women than ever, reaching 35% of direct in the program.
As a simple indicative note, in addition to the inaugural film, fans and the curious will be able to enjoy works about Sinéad O’Connor, Omara Portuondo, Leonard Cohen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ennio Morricone, Thelonious Monk, Interpol, Courtney Barnett, Dio , Chumbawamba, Stockhausen, XXXTentacion, Thelonious Monk, Joaquín Sabina, the New York punk scene, the German group Can (one of the benchmarks of krautrock), King Crimson, Barcelona’s Studio 54, the same but focused on the sadly disappeared Rocksound room, Tequila, Italo Disco, Els Surfing Sirles or the referential feature film Summer of soul directed by Questlove. Or also the production No callarem about freedom of personalized expression in the cases of rappers Elgio, Josep Valtònyc and Pablo Hasél.
Today’s inaugural film of the International Music Documentary Film Festival is Meet me in the bathroom, an unbeatable portico of this 20th anniversary edition. The documentary is based on Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 book of the same title, in which she offered an oral history of the rock renaissance in New York at the beginning of this 21st century, with names like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, TV on the Radio, Liars, The Rapture and many others.
Once in the hands of Lovelace and Southern –who already have documentaries on LCD Soundsystem and Blur on their resume– the book has become a documentary that premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival. And that meant compressing the long story of Meet me in the bathroom into a 108-minute movie, which meant that some of the bands and anecdotes in the book would disappear in favor of a story that focuses primarily on the biggest bands in the band. New York scene. And without forgetting events such as the Twin Towers of 2001.
In this regard, Lovelace has explained that “we had to be very careful with how to build the film. What interested us was that all the stories felt like coming-of-age stories for the characters, but coming-of-age stories that took place at a very specific time. And it seemed to us that we could take advantage of the notion of how the world was changing. And what happened on 9/11 made them more aware of the music they were making and the weight of it.”
