Something Else – June 14th, feat. Alain Gomis, Tami Sussman, The Rusty Spring Syncopators and Jackpot, Tiger.
We’d be crazy to try to give you a one sentence summary of last week’s jam-packed Something Else…but here goes:
Slam poets, Sydney Film Festival, movies in the Sydney Film Festival, slam poets in movies in the Sydney Film Festival, awesome music by two “local” bands (if, like Joel, you happen to call both Sydney and New York local), and the first time the show has ever been officially co-hosted!
Confused? Us too. We better give you a summary that actually makes sense:
On last week’s show Something Else’s newly formed co-hosting duo, Joel Hagen & Rhys Cohen, started off the show (after a brief and self-indulging introduction) with an abridged version of Justine’s interview with Alain Gomis, whose film Today was in Sydney Film Festival‘s official competition. Alain Gomis is a Senegalese-French director & writer, and Today follows 24 hours in the life of a man who wakes up knowing he will die at the end of the day, despite being apparently healthy. Rather than frenetically trying to fulfill any last wishes the man, Satché, played by poet Saul Williams, instead retraces his life through visiting old loves, family and friends, all the while walking literally and metaphorically towards death. Justine also conducted interviews with Stephen Maing (the director of the documentary High Tech, Low Life) and Pietra Brettkelly (the director of the documentary Maori Boy Genius), both of which featured in this year’s Sydney Film Festival. To listen to those interviews subscribe to our podcast feed.
Today by Alain GomisWe also had Sydney slam poet, Tami Sussman, in the studio for an interview and Tami graced us with a live performance of her phenomenal poem It’s Not You It’s Me. Because slam poetry played a little bit of a theme in last week’s show (through both Saul Williams being the star of Today and Tami joining us in the studio) we thought we would use this post as an opportunity to quickly give those of you who might not have heard of slam a taste of some great slam performances. Slam poetry is basically a competition between spoken word poets, held in different events all over the world and has given rise to spectacular poets who have won those competitions (including Saul Williams and Tami Sussman).
Definitely have a listen to the podcast of last week’s show, because as well as being able to listen to our interview with Tami Sussman, her live performance and Justine’s interview with Alain Gomis, you will also be able to hear songs by The Rusty Spring Syncopators and Jackpot, Tiger. This is a particular treat because if you are a regular listener of our podcasts you’ll know that we don’t normally include songs (…damn copyrighting!) but we managed to get in touch with both of the bands and get special permission to podcast their music. If you like their music please support them by visiting their websites/facebook pages, purchasing their albums, going to their gigs or just letting them know you love them.
To finish off this rambly blog post we’d just like to mention a couple cool artsy events that are coming up soon. As we mentioned in the show SafARI kicks off next week! It is the unofficial biennale of Sydney which aims to support emerging artists (a goal that we at Something Else understand all to well). The opening night is this Thursday 21st June and takes place at Level 2, 40 Gloucester Street, The Rocks, starting at 6:30pm. Head down there to meet up with some folks from Eastside (a couple of which will even by DJ’ing the night).
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to mention it on air, but there is an up-coming artistic event that is definitely worth putting on your radar. The 1st Persian International Film Festival is putting on a tribute to Asghar Farhadi, the Oscar winning director of the phenomenal film A Separation. And to bring this post full circle, as well as winning the Oscar for best foreign film of last year, A Separation also won the grand prize at last year’s Sydney Film Festival. The tribute to Farhadi will include screenings of a few of his lesser known, yet still exceptional, earlier films and what promises to be a really interesting panel discussion about his work.
To get regular updates about awesome alternative arts events in Sydney be sure to like us on facebook or follow us on twitter, and be sure to check out our show’s blog somethingelse897fm.wordpress.com
– Joel & Rhys