Rebel Musics – documentaries at Productions Multi-Monde

Montreal Serai requested a list of films that Productions Multi-Monde has produced on the topic music of protest. Below are some of these films.

 

 

At the turn of the millennium, our team here at Productions Multi-Monde started to work a series of documentaries about “rebel music” around the world. There was a dearth of music with politics and we went looking for artists who dared to create and perform it.

We produced a first film, Musiques rebelles Québec (Rebel Music Québec), in the tumultuous lead-up to the Summit of the Americas in Québec City in 2001, with four groups of artists who performed in that unforgettable event also known as the Tear-gas summit.  (It was broadcast on Télé-Québec in 2002)

Then we turned to Latin America, with its long tradition of political music that inspired so many social and revolutionary movements and Musiques rebelles Americas came out in 2004. Filmed in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, it was an overview of the social movements rocking the continent and some of the musicians that they inspired. We produced English, French and Spanish versions, and organized a tour of a dozen cities in Québec and Ontario with the film and some of the musicians who appear in it. A short video was made to document this amazing adventure and is available on line.

Rebel Music Africa was always part of our plan, and we worked on it for a couple of years, with Hind Benchekroun, met some amazing musicians, including Tiken Jah Fakoly, Alpha Blondy, Bonga Kuenda and others, receiving good support in development but were unable to get a Canadian TV on board for production. (See the excellent film made by Yannick Létourneau, called United States of Africa, which fortunately did get produced!)

Musiques rebellesa autochtoneNative Rebel Music finally bore the title DetermiNATION SONGS and came out in 2009, directed by indigenous filmmakers, Paul Rickard and Michelle Smith. Broadcast on Aboriginal People’s Television Network, (APTN) the documentary showcased four amazing indigenous artists and the movements that inspired them in Ontario and Québec.

Our project also inspired a book Rebel Musics: Human Rights, Resistant Sounds, and the Politics of Music-Making, edited by Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble, and published by Black Rose books in 2003. We contributed an article to the book.

 

— Marie Boti, August 2013