Opening Night
Sound Unseen Film+Music Festival celebrates 20 years of film, music, and art in the Twin Cities. The opening night event includes a live music performance by Katy Vernon starting at 6:30 pm. Visit Sound Unseen for the full schedule of events.
Alternative-music icon PJ Harvey’s ninth studio album, 2016’s The Hope Six Demolition Project, was created through a unique process that blended travelogue, photography, performance art, and now a documentary feature. It began when Harvey, looking to develop a new set of politically tinged songs that would also evoke a tangible sense of place, decided to accompany award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker Seamus Murphy as he travelled on assignments to war-torn regions in Afghanistan and Kosovo, as well as to the poor, mostly black neighborhoods of Washington, DC. As Murphy filmed, Harvey personally interacted with the members of the different communities and wrote her impressions in a diary, crafting song lyrics and melodies based on the stories she uncovered. Back in London, Harvey and her band experimented with these new songs during a live sound installation called “Recording in Progress” at the distinguished Somerset House, generating an album’s worth of material entirely within a glass-walled recording studio, with members of the public invited to watch. Chronicling the entire project, and even including a handful of songs not on the final album, A Dog Called Money is Murphy’s inspiring, expressionistic document of this unprecedented collaborative experiment. 2019, Ireland/UK, DCP, 90 min. —Clinton McClung, Seattle International Film Festival
Copresented with Sound Unseen