Sound Unseen, a film festival about music, now in its ninth year, has typically been a hipster event showcasing hip bands in hip venues. Which is far from a bad thing. But it may be growing up a bit. Take the opening film, screening tonight at 7:15 pm at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis: “The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes,” a gentle documentary about the curious genius of Garrison Keillor. And for every film during the rest of the festival on Sonic Youth or Sigur Ros there are some truly compelling and diverse selections that we should be so lucky to have screening here.
On Sunday, October 26, the film “Half Moon” screens at St. Anthony Main theater, a moving, beautiful picture by a Kurdish director about a Kurdish musican in failing health leads his dozen sons to a concert celebrating the fall of Saddam. “Every Beat of My Heart,” screening October 28 at St. Anthony Main, is a bio-pic of Johnny Otis, the so-called godfather of rhythm and blues. And other films explore a hip-hop artist who was one of the Lost Boys of Sudan and an Iraqi heavy-metal band.
