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Music Pictures: New Orleans film image, director Ben Chace

Music Pictures: New Orleans

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Canadian Premiere

Four snapshots from behind the rich music scene of New Orleans. Filmmaker Ben Chace (Wah Do Dem; Sin Alas) dips into four recording sessions—jazz, blues, soul, and more jazz—and allows the artists to share their stories, beginning with the Queen of Soul, the legendary Irma Thomas; then Benny Jones from the Treme Brass Band; King of the Blues, Little Freddie King; and finally, father and son, Ellis and Jason Marsalis, on piano and vibraphone, respectively.

Chace might have expanded any one of these vignettes into a feature-length documentary; instead he gives us a buffet, a taster, or a playlist if you will, and invites us to draw out the connections between these veteran African-American artists who found their métier making music long ago, but continue to create, compose, and inspire. The director is himself a musician, and it shows: there is a shorthand that musicians share and which underscores the sessions captured here. As for the music, you’ll want to get up and dance.

 

Media Partner

Stir Logo

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Irma Thomas, Ellis Marsalis, Little Freddie King, Benny Jones Sr., Jason Marsalis

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2021

Language

English

Film Contact
18+
72 min
Art, Music & Photography Documentary

Book Tickets

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Credits

Executive Producer

John Caulkins, Henry Kasdon

Producer

Ben Chace, Bill Ramsey

Screenwriter

Ben Chace

Cinematography

Nisa East, Bruno Doria, Zac Manuel, Sam Fleischner, Andrew Storrs

Editor

Ben Chace

Director

Ben Chace headshot, Music Pictures: New Orleans director

Ben Chace

Ben Chace has directed several independent feature films including Wah Do Dem (2010), which won the Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival, was shortlisted for Best Film at BFI London Film Festival and was listed in Artforum’s Top 10 Films of 2010. His follow-up Sin Alas (2016), the first American-produced feature filmed in Cuba since 1959, screened at AFI Latin American Film Festival and Curaçao International Film Festival Rotterdam and was distributed by Kino Lorber. Ben grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and attended NYU Gallatin School.

Filmography: Wah Do Dem (2010); Sin Alas (2016)