Making Music Docs That Aren’t One Note

Part of SXSW 2023

This event took place on Monday, March 13, 2023 at 2:30 PM UTC.

Venue: Austin Convention Center, Room 12AB. Join Firelight Media for a conversation featuring BIPOC filmmakers whose documentaries go beyond one-note celebrity profiles to interrogate the power of music and musicians to shape and advance culture. Legendary filmmaker Stanley Nelson (‘Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool’) will be joined by Sabaah Folayan (‘Look at Me: XXXTentacion’) and Isabel Castro (‘Mija’) whose films leverage the music doc genre to explore urgent issues such as mental health, immigration, and intimate partner violence. The panel will explore the craft behind making music documentaries and provide a behind-the-scenes look at how filmmakers work with artists, their families, and their estates to create truthful and balanced portraits of their subjects. Moderated by Fredara Hadley, ethnomusicology professor at Juilliard.