CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival 2009

Details

Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Music

Published on Monday, 21 September 2009 11:13

Written by Brad Balfour

CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival 2009 will hit New York City from October 20-24, 2009. For five days and nights, over 1,200 artists and 120,000 fans will take over more than 75 of the city's greatest nightclubs and theaters. Headquartered once again at New York University's Greenwich Village campus, participate in New York City's largest music festival.

CMJ '09 will feature exclusive nighttime parties, daytime exhibit areas, registrant lounges, a technology fair, artist and press lounges, meet and greets, panels, seminars, mentoring sessions, community initiatives, networking events, Q&As and special events.

The CMJ Marathon 2009 initial lineup includes:

• Broadcast
• School of Seven Bells (at Webster Hall)
• Zac Brown Band
• Múm (at Le Poisson Rouge with Iceland's Sin Fang Bous)
• Atlas Sound
• Japandroids
• Margaret Cho
• The Budos Band
• Pitbull
• The Very Best
• The Temper Trap
• Crystal Antlers
• Portugal The Man (at Bowery Ballroom)
• Cymbals Eat Guitars
• Malajube,
• Local Natives
• Wild Light
• The Antlers
• Das Racist
• Suckers
• Pissed Jeans
• Screaming Females
• Atlas Sound,
• Broadcast
• The Selmanaires
  
• The Drums at Santos

 CMJ Music Marathon General badges are $475 and student badges are $285 until midnight Tuesday, September 22 2009. Don't miss the chance for group discounts.

In conjunction with the CMJ Music Marathon, the 2009 CMJ Film Festival, runs from Tuesday, October 20 through Saturday, October 24 at various locations in New York City.

Newly invigorated, the 15th year of the film festival marks the first under the aegis of Artistic Director Alex Steyermark and Festival Manager Frances Wallace. Over the years, the festival has appealed to hordes of music industry folk and Marathon registrants, but this year Steyermark and Wallace aim at diversify their selections and expand the outreach to the film industry and the general movie-going public.

This refocusing includes an expanded program of 31 films, with screenings split between the Norwood Club on 14th St. and Clearview Cinemas on Chelsea's W. 23rd St.

Selections range from larger-scale productions like The Men Who Stare At Goats, and the festival's closing film, director Oren Moverman's The Messenger, to first-time features such as the Terror Twins' dark comedy The Invisible Life of Thomas Lynch and hard-hitting docs like the controversial exposé of Dole Food's farming practices, Bananas!

This is the first year the festival has attempted to bridge the gap between music and film festival attendees through the Music Doc showcase. All films in the series -- including Searching for Elliott Smith (a post-mortem biopic), and Mellodrama, (a history of the mellotron) -- will screen in five-hour blocks during the daytime at the Norwood (where the festival's opening and closing parties - RSVP only - will also be held).

Friday night, the Clearview will hold a "Downtown Doc Double-Bill" featuring Pardon Us for Living But the Graveyard is Full (about the prolific if under-recognized band The Fleshtones) and Kid Creole and My Coconuts (a memoir of collected footage shot by Adriana Kaegi, the lead Coconut in an '80s world-fusion band that was ahead of its time).

The music-to-film connection is also reflected in the film festival's two panel contributions. The first, on "Breaking into Film Scoring," features Nathan Larson, music supervisor for Moverman's closing-night film, The Messenger, as well as Sue Devine, senior director of Film and Television Music at ASCAP, and will be moderated by Steyermark, an impressive music supervisor in his own right (Malcolm X, The Ice Storm).

The second panel, entitled "Déjà Vu All Over Again," explores the reality of the new film distribution model as it relates to changes already observed in the music industry. The panel, moderated by The New Yorker's John Seabrook, will showcase authorities from both the film and music industries, including Ira Deutchman of Emerging Pictures, Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management and music industry attorney Nick Gordon.

To access the full schedule of festival films or purchase advance tickets or passes, visit the CMJ Film Festival website: www.CMJ.com/marathon

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