Sweden / United Kingdom 2012, 82 min, English, Hebrew subtitles

Rodriguez, a Mexican-American musician, released two failed albums in the early 1970’s and became a superstar in South Africa without his knowledge. Two of his fans there decide to find out what happened to him, only to discover that the real story defies the imagination. Rodriguez is just as big as Bob Dylan in the South African rock scene. He influenced a whole generation of musicians. This film reconstructs the remarkable circumstances in which a man could be a construction worker and a superstar at the same time, but not in the same place. As the fans’ search commences, they learn some remarkable details about their idol’s life. Meanwhile the film’s soundtrack exposes the audience to Rodriguez’s amazing, but long-forgotten music. Beyond being a fascinating story about how incidental fame and anonymity really are, Sugar Man is a vivid example of the power music has to move across distant continents, only to return home in the end.

Previous Festivals: Sundance, Oscar Nominee (rywinner best documenta)

Based in Stockholm, Malik Bendjelloul has been directing documentaries for twelve years, primarily based on musicians. In 2001, Bendjelloul directed the first ever documentary about German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. He has also made a documentary series about the history of heavy metal as well as some single documentaries, collaborating with such iconic artists as Björk, Sting, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Mariah Carey, U2 and Kylie Minogue. This past fall Bendjelloul directed a filmed concert with Prince.

Production: John Battsek, Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn
Production Company: Red Box Films, Canfield Pictures, Passion Pictures
Editing: Malik Bendjelloul
Cinematography: Camilla Skagerstrom
Music: SIXTO RODRIGUEZ

Source: David Bartholomew

Screenings

Oops...

Your subscription is not valid for this screening method. Please purchase a different subscription or a single ticket for this screening.
Buy a subscription

Buy a subscription
Buy a ticket
Have a subscription? Login

You might like...

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<title></title>
<meta name="Generator" content="Cocoa HTML Writer">
<meta name="CocoaVersion" content="1404.47">
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>not found</p>
</body>
</html>
PlayPause