This year’s SF Doc Fest seems to have a pretty impressive lineup. The in-person festival also has a virtual component this year, giving out-of-town viewers the ability to pay the ticket price and have a window of time to screen select docs from the program.
There’s finally a documentary on Aquarius Records, the now-defunct gem of a record store that turned many a customer on to the weirder side of music. I used to frequent this place all the time when I lived in the Mission. It Came From Aquarius Records features an interview with Aquarius fan (and Simpsons creator) Matt Groening, as well as many Bay Area musicians, radio DJs, and a whole slew of various store managers who worked there throughout its run. Watch the trailer above, and buy your tickets to watch it on June 1 via this link.
Additionally, there’s yet another film coming out about Psychic TV / Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P-Orridge and their COUM Transmissions art project:
AND…There’s a documentary about the 90s “one-hit wonder” band Chumbawamba. Now, before you tune out, read the official blurb below and watch the trailer, because the story was quite fascinating. They were not what you perceived them to be:
“I GET KNOCKED DOWN is the untold story of Leeds-based anarcho-pop band Chumbawamba. Founding band-member Dunstan Bruce is 59, and he is struggling with the fact that the world seems to be going to hell in a handcart. Twenty years after his fall from grace, Bruce is angry and frustrated, but how does a retired middle-aged radical get back up again? In this punk version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Dunstan is visited by the antagonistic ghost of his anarchist past – his alter ego, ‘Babyhead’ – who forces him to question his own life, sending him on a search for his long-lost anarchist mojo. Following Bruce’s personal voyage of rediscovery, redemption, and reawakening, I GET KNOCKED DOWN acts as a call to arms to those who think activism is best undertaken by someone else.”
You can browse the festival’s entire 2022 program right here.
