As festival season kicks off there are a ton of bands and great parties to look forward to, but what about the films? Glad you asked! Nelson George and Arthur Baker will be premiering their joint cinematic venture Finding The Funk - a documentary about the origins and impact of funk music - at SXSW 2013. The film is an archaeology of funk, taking us back to the spot where the mothership landed to decode the writings on the wall. The film is narrated by Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, who discusses funk - the afro-futuristic amalgam of blues and bold color that was perennially loud, wrong and oh so right - as the expression of an idiosyncratic and visionary community of creative music-makers. Funk is the deviant gospel that was born to hurt your feelings and feel you up in public. It is the unjustifiably dirty second-line for all of the folks in the struggle who never got to stick it to the man. It is black rock & roll. Finding The Funk is the filmic examination of an unmistakable sound as told by the people in the pocket who lived and died for it.
The film premieres in earnest on Wednesday March 13. The filmmakers will not be screening a final cut of the project, which is pending musical contributions and b-roll footage. There will be two other screenings during the festival dates and a panel discussion about funk featuring Arthur Baker and Bootsy Collins on March 16th. See below for screening details.
SXSW Screening Schedule for Finding The Funk:
March 13 - Alamo Ritz 1 - 1:30PM - 2:48PM
March 14 - SXSatellite: Alamo Village - 7:00PM - 8:18PM
March 15 - Alamo Ritz 2 - 4:45PM - 6:03PM
