“PARALLEL PLANES”

PARALLEL PLANES – A DOCUMENTARY ESSAY ABOUT INDEPENDENCE AND MUSIC

//  Documentary  /  2017  /  100 Min. / Director: Nicole Wegner

//  World Premiere 10/31/17 @ DOK Leipzig

/  International Premiere 05/18 @ Urban Nomad Festival, Tapiei

/ Australasian Premiere 07/18 @ Revelations Perth International Film Festival

/ Prices + Nomination: Nominated for Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, DOK Buster 2017 @DOK Leipzig, Audience Award @ Soundwatch Festival Berlin

This film pays homage to the American DIY spirit and the diversity of the US musical landscape outside the commercial music industry. While many other music films never make it beyond hero worship, director Nicole Wegner consistently maintains eye level with her twelve interview partners, who include Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi), Michael Gira (Swans) and Valentine Falcon (Get Hustle). What they all have in common is that they couldn’t care less about marketing strategies and target group orientation as they gleefully hack the music industry and play by their own rules. Though the film shows extremely diverse musical styles, there is a general agreement to see the DIY idea as the most important legacy of punk and the starting point of self-empowerment and resistance.

Like a certified mixtape, “Parallel Planes” combines old and new songs, really clever thoughts about making music and personal insights to generate a narrative that resembles an open building kit of ideas from which everyone who wants to take things into their own hands can help themselves. Using gaudy cut-up elements and references to video clip aesthetics, the film develops a drive which might even lead the viewer to rush out of the cinema with a project of their own in mind and simply start on it …

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

with: Michael Gira (Swans), Mick Barr (Orthrelm), Justin Pearson (The Locust, Swing Kids), Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi), Valentine Falcon (Get Hustle), Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu), Anna Barie (These Are Powers), Weasel Walter (The Flying Luttenbachers), Jenny Hoyston (Erase Errata), Alap Momin (Dälek), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof), Otto von Schirach

Press-PKG:
– DOK Leipzig catalogue entry
– PARALLEL PLANES website
– PARALLEL PLANES mixtape