We’re over the moon to host the 2 day Sublime Frequencies film festival. Hisham Mayet ~ a film maker, photographer, musical researcher and sound adventurer and co-owner of the Sublime Frequencies, will join us to screen a selection of his films. Tom of Hummingbird records will be spinning records as well ~ a treat for the eyes, a treat for the ears

the bar will be open per usual, serving up beverages and bar snacks ( 2 kinds of sandwich and the usual fare)

Find tickets here: (1 or 2 day passes available) https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sublime-frequencies-film-fest-july-11th-12th-tickets-1992516619847?aff=oddtdtcreator

trailer : https://vimeo.com/user71331680

****Sublime Frequencies is a collective of explorers dedicated to
acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and
traditional urban and rural frontiers via film and video, field
recordings, radio and short wave transmissions, international folk and
pop music, sound anomalies, and other forms of human and natural
expression not documented sufficiently through all channels of academic
research, the modern recording industry, media, or corporate
foundations.****

Saturday July 11th programming :

7pm The Divine River

The Divine River: Ceremonial Pageantry In The Sahel A Film By Hisham
Mayet 47 minutes

Sublime Frequencies announces a new film by Hisham Mayet: The Divine
River: Ceremonial Pageantry in the Sahel.  Condensed from 40 hours of
footage shot between 2007 and 2012, The Divine River is an exhilarating,
hallucinatory and harrowing record of music, ritual, life and landscape
along the Niger River—which the Tuareg call Egerew n-Igerewen, or
"River of Rivers"— as it winds through Mali and the Republic of Niger.


Traversing 300 miles of this transitional zone between the Sahara and
the Savanna, The Divine River is not a linear record of a journey so
much as a phantasmagoria of visual associations that create their own
emotional topography and chronology, always accompanied by music that
blurs the lines between sacred and secular, past and present. Highlights
include intimate views of ecstatic dance in the painted houses of the
island-dwelling Wogo; the seductive courtship rites and trance vocals of
young Wodaabe men; a mesmeric Tuareg and Zarma duet for guitar and molo;
Hausa griots enchanting with comsaa strings; Zarma spirit possession
ceremonies; and heart-stopping footage of the Dogon mask ritual atop the
Bandiagara Escarpment in the village of Endele.

True to Sublime Frequencies' "aesthetic of extra-geography and soulful
experience," The Divine River refuses hasty contextualizations and rote
interpretations that, far from "explaining" cultural displays, deaden
viewers to the presence of mystery. Avoiding the temptation to reduce
ritual to a simple matter of ends and means, its silence respects the
chasm that separates concepts like "possession" from their lived
reality. Rejecting the distractions of an imaginary understanding in
favor of simple attention and humility, it traces the portal to deeper
knowledge counseled in a centuries-old Sufi prayer: "O Lord, increase my
bewilderment."



8pm Oulaya's Wedding (featuring Group Doueh)

OULAYA’S WEDDING [زفاف العيلة] is an impressionistic account
of love, family, gender roles and ecstatic music in the Sahara desert.
It’s an intimate portrait of a family of wedding musicians, their
court of extended friends and peripheral misfits, who are giving away
their eldest daughter’s hand in marriage. The film portrays the
emotional and logistical maelstrom of a Sahraoui wedding. Presented are
candid and sincere accounts by the residents, hosts, guests and artists
that make these weddings a foundation of Saharan culture in the city of
Dakhla.Group Doueh, the most beloved family band in the Western Sahara,
are the main subject of this documentary. Sublime Frequencies co-founder
Hisham Mayet and his team, were Doueh's personal guests and given
unprecedented access to film and record the pageantry and stunning music
of his daughter's traditional Sahraoui wedding. The result is a film of
warmth, humor and belonging through music in this remote and overlooked
region in the midst of a rapidly changing Sahraoui culture .
[Documentary, 58 min., Dir. Hisham Mayet with Cyrus Moussavi and
Brittany Nugent].