Review
The Independent Film Festival Boston has been a major showcase for short films from New England and beyond. Here’s a roundup of one of this year’s programs, “Shorts Dartmouth: Narrative” (collections are named after streets in the Back Bay). There’s not a weak one in the five-film bunch.
Perhaps “Izipho Zam (My Gifts)” might have become as well known as Pharoah Sanders’s “Karma” — if Impulse! rather than the tiny cooperative label Strata-East had recorded it.
The emphasis of the B&P troupe has become increasingly apocalyptic: the struggle we are engaged in is for nothing less than the preservation of our planet, and for the preservation of our individual — and collective ––hearts and minds.
While he paints, Stanley Whitney listens to and is inspired by jazz. Miles Davis’s album “Bitches Brew” is his constant companion in the studio.
These Stata-East recordings are the result of a special moment in the history of jazz, when some musicians brilliantly took charge of their own careers. Luckily for us, the music is still strikingly fresh and contemporary.
The not-to-be missed “Symphonic Chronicles IV” is a very welcome alternative to much of the atonal, modern classical music currently flooding the market.
Sunday’s 100-minute show at Crystal Ballroom offered a celebration of what Gang of Four means for its surviving original members and followers alike, including newer generations represented onstage as well as in the packed hall.
The future for documentaries looks troubling, but the IFFBoston perseveres.
American darkness is now up front and personal. “Holland”‘s stale moves miss where we are now — disaster isn’t hidden, it is in clear view.
This was a “Resurrection” Symphony for today: urgent and unsettled, yes, but also searching, persevering, and, ultimately, triumphant. If the weekend turns out to have marked conductor Benjamin Zander’s last go-around with this masterpiece, what a way to finish.
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