About old and new music movies…
10 March 2021
Documentary about multi-faceted British punk legend Poly Styrene who introduced the world to a new sound of rebellion, using her unconventional voice to sing about identity, consumerism, postmodernism, and everything she saw unfolding in late 1970s England, with a rare prescience. As the frontwoman of X-Ray Spex, the Anglo-Somali punk musician was also a key inspiration for the riot grrrl and Afropunk movements. But the late punk maverick didn’t just leave behind an immense cultural footprint.
Directed by: Poly’s daughter Celeste Bell (interview here under) and Paul Sng
Released: 27 February 2021 – Now streaming through independent cinemas in the UK
and Ireland and will premiere in North America at SXSW from March 16-20.
More info ‘to watch’, here via Modern Films.
Louder Than War wrote: “A dazzling documentary that will renew your faith in the
power of cinema to depict lives that aren’t so easily narrated… This film is so much more than a documentary. Certainly, it offers insight into Poly Styrene’s life and career in X-Ray Spex, and it brings together incredible commentary from voices that include Pauline Black, Ana da Silva, Kathleen Hanna, Rhoda Dakar, Don Letts, Neneh Cherry, Vivien Goldman, John Robb, Gina Birch, and so many others. But even more, it’s an elegiac rumination on a complicated yet beautiful life, and the power of narrative for those, like Bell, who do the storytelling.” Full review here.
The trailer…
The cliché…
Turn Up The Volume‘s numero uno X-Ray Spex cracker…
POLY STYRENE: Facebook
Rest in peace, heroine…
TURN UP THE VOLUME 