The music films across genres that made waves in this year’s lineup
Illustration by Chloe Latour.
Last month, the thirty-first annual Victoria Film Festival (VFF) came to town. The festival showed more than 90 films across genres in the span of just over a week. Eleven standout films this year could be classified as music films, or films about music.
The Martlet reviewed VFF’s entire music film lineup — the groovy, the groundbreaking, and the down-right disappointing.
The festival showed more than 90 films across genres in the span of just over a week. Eleven standout films this year could be classified as music films, or films about music. Teaches of Peaches (Philipp Fussenegger and Judy Landkammer, 2024)
This German-made documentary follows Canadian techno-singer Peaches as she embarks on a twentieth anniversary tour for her 2000 album, The Teaches of Peaches. The documentary opens with archival footage of the provocative performer before sharply cutting to the present day, where a now-grey-haired, 56-year-old Peaches rehearses with a walker (later revealed to be part of a stage gag.) During recordings of the live shows, we frequently flash between the young, unencumbered Peaches of the 90s and 00s, and the person she is today. If it’s implied that Peaches is slowing with age, her electrifying performances prove otherwise.
At a sold-out screening at the pop-up Toaster Rocket Cinema, Peaches’ audacious humour and sex-positive ethos captivated the audience. She ran through the crowd in a giant inflatable phallus, wearing a “Thank God for Abortion” tee, striving to create a space for uninhibited sexual expression. While the documentary, filmed in 2022, explores media progress and LGBTQ+ representation, it feels optimistic in the harsh light of 2025. Offstage, Peaches seems warm and encouraging, mentoring her young bassist and connecting with her fans from the queer community. Collaborators, including Leslie Feist and Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson praise the singer’s inimitable influence.
In contrast to her uninhibited stage presence, the film represents Peaches without an essential level of vulnerability. We are told that the anthemic single, “F*** the Pain Away,” was born from true struggle. Yet, the film largely avoids deeper exploration of the singer’s drug use, personal trauma, or disassociation. When asked whether her views on reproductive rights are “Personal or political,” Peaches deflected, saying: “Not cool.” For all her fearlessness — bearing all and running across the stage, strap-on at the ready — the woman behind the bold lyrics remains obscured.
Gloria! (Margherita Vicario, 2024)
A packed Sunday screening at Cinecenta brought the VFF to a jubilant close. Margherita Vicario’s feature directorial debut is a historical musical tale about young female orphans living under the rule of a tyrannical composer, Perlina (Paolo Rossi). Perlina learns that the Pope is coming for a special performance, and is increasingly frustrated by his inability to write a decent note.
Though the story is told from the point-of-view of a young mute maid at the orphanage, Teresa (Galatéa Bellugi), it is more of an ensemble drama reminiscent of Little Women. A group of young women sing sessions around a pianoforte they discover in the cellar, and form a tentative friendship. The warmth of the candlelit space where the girls meet communicates the invigorating power of music, especially compared to their harsh, starkly lit days in the orphanage.
The script stumbles through contrived, clunky dialogue, and the “evil” villain is sometimes cartoonish. However, compelling performances improve on the script, particularly from Carlotta Gamba as Lucia. The film flirts with darkness and internal conflicts, but never fully commits, offering a slightly melodramatic tone. Each girl is given a tragic backstory, but they are largely shoe-horned into the final third of the film, leaving little room for character development.
The true strength is in the music, composed by the singer-songwriter turned director Margherita Vicario, and Davide Pavanello. Contemporary sounds and pop beats are deftly woven with classical pieces, with pop ballads belted out in contrast to Mozart-like violin. This gives the film an anachronistic feel, transcending the 1800s Venetian setting, and complementing the forward-thinking feminist themes. Masterful sound design heightens the experience; clanking spoons while the orphans eat soup, and clodding footsteps become part of the film’s sonic texture.
Ultimately, though Gloria! delivers some heavy-handed messages about discovering your voice despite oppression; its joyful tone and focus on female friendships make it a worthwhile experience.
Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, 2024)
Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat is a documentary about Congolese history. In 1960, the Congo declared independence from Belgium as decolonization swept across Africa, and in the same year, American jazz musicians toured to promote American culture. They were unaware that they were a Trojan horse, sent in order to smuggle CIA agents into the country to assassinate the Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba.
Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat uses music of the time — jazz — to set the scene of the 60s, both in the everyday setting, and political storms brewing under the surface. The film uses archival footage from a wide variety of sources, all cut together with jazz music. One of Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat’s biggest strengths is its cinematic rhythm. The editing enables quick switches from subject to subject in order to establish context for the audience, but also slower tempos during key moments.
The film portrays the feeling that history could have occurred differently as you’re watching it. The inevitable Coup D’Etat won’t arrive, Lumumba won’t be assassinated, the Congo becomes a sovereign nation that can control its own destiny — but pointed cuts to Teslas and iPhone commercials reveal that foreign powers are still exploiting the Congo for its cobalt.
The film is a ride through history, razor sharp in its critiques, and a reminder that the lasting effects of colonialism not only continue into the present, but how they are upheld.
Forbidden Music (Barbara Hager, 2025)
Forbidden Music explores the partnership between Kwakwaka’wakw Chief Mungo Martin and Jewish ethno-musicologist Dr. Ida Halpern. During the period of the Canadian Potlatch Ban, they recorded a series of Indigenous songs with the intent to preserve culture in the face of cultural genocide.
This documentary uses archival footage, and interviews with family and community members, as we follow Chief Martin’s and Dr. Halpern’s intertwining lives and the legacies they left behind. The parallels between Nazi-occupied Austria and Canada’s Potlatch Ban are explored through two contrasting performances. One, a string quartet performing songs by Jewish composers that were forbidden during WWII, and the other playing archive footage of one of the first potlatches at the Wawadit’la, in front of the Royal BC Museum.
Forbidden Music also touches on Halpern’s missteps — specifically, the issue of copyright for the four albums of Indigenous songs made not only by Chief Martin’s community (Kwakwaka’wakw), but also by local Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Coast Salish communities. Where does the copyright money go in a system that only honours one author?
Interviews from Chief Martin’s community, and Dr. Halpern’s piano students set an intimate tone, showing the viewer a clear picture of the impact they left.
Blue Rodeo: Lost Together (Dale Heslip, 2024)
This documentary from director Dale Heslip (Rush: Time Stands Still) follows the story of Canadian country rock band Blue Rodeo, from their origins in Toronto to the present day. Having formed in 1984, Blue Rodeo celebrated their fortieth anniversary last year.
Lost Together combines lengthy interviews with current and former members of the band, with concert footage, and intimate studio recording sessions. The film approaches the band’s history largely through the relationship between singers Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, focusing on how their creative partnership has shaped the band, and their friendship. Lost Together also spends time with other band members such as former drummer Cleave Anderson, who left Blue Rodeo in 1989 to return to his job with Canada Post.
The film doesn’t break new ground as a music documentary, and arguably fails to deliver a central thesis. Lost Together does, at times, feel a bit free-flowing — more content to explore various aspects of the band than to present an overarching narrative.
However, the film remains emotionally resonant due to the band’s frank discussions of their lives and experiences. Where other documentarians might have edged towards sensationalism — what with the departures of Anderson and Wiseman, Cuddy’s strained marriage, and the late-career health challenges faced by Keelor — Heslip treats these vulnerable moments with respect, allowing the band to share these stories and discuss how they felt, which was refreshing to see.
Casual and hardcore fans of Blue Rodeo alike will find something to enjoy in Lost Together, so long as they aren’t expecting the film to radically break from the conventions of the music-doc genre.
Really Happy Someday (J Stevens, 2024)
Really Happy Someday follows Z (Breton Lalama), a trans man and aspiring musical theatre performer whose Broadway dreams hit a block when he begins taking testosterone injections, causing his vocal register to change. The film begins with a brutal cold-open, showing Z at an audition, delivering a voice-crack-riddled performance of “On My Own” from Les Misérables.
As Z’s voice changes and his Broadway dreams appear dead in the water, he has to find temporary work at a local bar while deciding what to do next. He finds sympathetic ears in the form of his sole coworker, Santi (Xavier Lopez) and his vocal coach, Shelly (Ali Garrison).
The film, while fictional, favours authenticity whenever possible. Lalama, who plays Z, is also a trans man, and co-writer and director J Stevens aimed for the film to authentically show transition over time. They said the idea emerged from a series of Instagram posts by Lalama discussing his own vocal transition. Shelly — Z’s voice coach in the film — is played by Ali Garrison, Lalama’s real-life vocal coach.
Really Happy Someday is undoubtedly Z’s film. In most areas, the focus on Z does work, and secondary characters like Santi and Shelly still manage to be well-realized. This is unfortunately not the case for all of the film’s secondary characters. Most glaring is Daneille, Z’s long-term girlfriend, who works somewhere and wants to leave Toronto for New York for some reason, but the audience is left guessing what her desires and motives might be. Danielle’s shallow characterization lessened the impact of the transformation in their relationship.
Nevertheless, Really Happy Someday is an intensely moving and authentic film, exploring the difficulties of transition through a powerful metaphor — Z’s voice. His voice may never be the same, Shelly tells Z at one point in the film, but isn’t that the point?
Ari’s Theme (Nathan Drillot, Jeff Lee Petry)
On a Sunday evening, the Alix Goolden Performance Hall in the Victoria Conservatory of Music was turned into a theatre, premiering a music documentary that was shot in the same auditorium: Ari’s Theme.
The film follows 34-year-old Ari Kinarthy’s journey to leave a legacy as he lives with type 2 spinal muscular atrophy, a condition that progressively weakens his muscles.
The film details the composition of “Ari’s Theme,” a piece of music written by the film’s protagonist. The music piece carries the narrative alongside Ari’s voice journals, which act like an ongoing monologue. In every dip or pause in the music, Ari’s words echo what the music makes you feel. They verbalize Ari’s challenges and insecurities.
While the film considers a number of challenges in Ari’s life, one is front and centre: Ari cannot play the instruments he is scoring. He works with Allan Slade, a certified music therapist at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, and Johannes Winkler, an Austria-based composer, to remedy this. While his hands may not ever touch the strings of a violin, or keys of a piano, Ari knows how his piece is supposed to sound by gradually becoming confident in how he wants each bar to sound.
The scenes demonstrate a special duality between Ari’s reality and inside his mind; imaginative scenes show instruments floating in the air towards Ari, and crashing down when he remembers he can’t play them. The combination of slow, static scenes with ones that capture dynamic movement keep the audience’s attention. The film tunes into Victoria’s natural landscape by depicting the rocky shores and tall trees that surround Ari both in times of isolation or collaboration.
The film succeeds in its mission to define Ari’s legacy. It tells a story of a highly motivated character who is aware of his weaknesses, and his journey to create what he hears in his mind. When his notes are finally played live, audiences have the pleasure of both seeing Ari’s process, and listening to “Ari’s Theme”.
Midas Man (Joe Stephenson, 2024)
Midas Man is a biopic that follows Brian Epstein, early champion and manager for the Beatles from 1961-1967. At a runtime of just under two hours, the film covers both Epstein’s and the band’s journey from humble underground shows in Liverpool to their first international appearance on Sullivan in New York. It’s an interesting take on the traditional musical biopic, opting to focus on the business side of rising talent instead of the musical act.
The film had significant production issues, including multiple directors having been involved throughout the nearly five-year-long process. This is most evident in the film’s structure, which feels disjointed and rushed at times.
Midas Man tries its best to balance both the story of Epstein’s personal life, and the early career of the Beatles, but ultimately struggles to properly flesh out either. It’s disappointing, because Epstein’s life seemed ripe with unique, emotional turmoil outside of his role with the band. His personal struggles — his sexuality, toxic relationships with both his father and his partner Tex (Ed Speleers), and his struggles with substance abuse — are all mostly glossed over in favour of rushing through to Epstein’s passing in 1967.
The Beatles are also given a surface-level narrative arc. They are well-cast, but ultimately treated like one conglomerate character in relation to Epstein. This results in plenty of admittedly fun scenes of band banter, but the members themselves are reduced to caricatures. Significant moments like the frenzy of Beatlemania should play out as tense, stressful points in Epstein and the band’s life, but are only realized through expository, fourth-wall breaking scenes where Epstein describes what happened over a montage of archival footage.
Midas Man is a difficult film to recommend even to die-hard Beatles fans, as the film doesn’t quite escape the biopic pitfall of covering too much in too little time — the final product is a story that lacks any depth and direction.
(S)KiDS (Leslie Solis and Louis Solis, 2024)
(S)KiDS is an animated film about a troubled teenage boy named Scotty who is forced to move to the midwest with his parents, finding himself in a wide range of high school drama. This includes clashes with the school’s cruel drug dealer, his henchman, the punk-hating teachers, and even the principal. Scotty finds solace in hanging out with the town misfits, the “Skids,” and his love interest, Holly.
This movie was created by Vancouver-based punk rock band Rare Americans, in collaboration with the animation studio Solis Animation. If you’re a fan of the band already, the film reflects their hallmark art and music style on a grand scale. The best moments come from the film’s musical sequences; paired with Rare American’s energetic sound, these mini music video-style vignettes are visually stunning, and lean into abstract imagery. This works well with Solis Animation’s signature, hand-drawn style.
The movie falters in scenes between musical moments. Dialogue is awkward and on-the-nose at times — it’s okay in lyric form, but feels cheesy in scenes that are meant to be taken seriously.
Scotty is likeable enough, but far less memorable than the supporting cast. His character is relatively static — when the Skids eventually indulge in punk mischief, Scotty feels more like a bystander than a miscreant. As a result, his arc is less defined than the film’s bully characters.
That said, I can commend the film’s unapologetic tone. Accompanied by a solid soundtrack and hyper-stylized visuals, (S)KiD is certainly one of the most fun and eccentric films from last year.
It’s All Gonna Break (Stephen Chung, 2024)
One of the most enjoyable films to come out of this year’s Victoria Film Festival wasStephen Chung’s newest documentary, It’s All Gonna Break. It is one of the best documentaries I have seen in years. This doc covers the careers of the Canadian rock band Broken Social Scene, and cameraman Chung’s role in shaping their music and lives.
Much like in blockbuster music films like Bohemian Rhapsody or A Complete Unknown, It’s All Gonna Break offers audiences a behind-the-scenes look at how classic songs like the titular “It’s All Gonna Break” came to be. We alsofocus on director Chung’s life with the band; his direction and cinematography are undoubtedly the highlights of this documentary. His direction is very sensitive, which is evident in his intricate shot choices, and interactions with the band members. Every shot is well-lit and choreographed in this film, and the editing by Graham Withers and Andrew Beach is top notch to match.
Overall though, the film’s length was its weak point. Some scenes felt inconsequential, and the middle act of the film tends to drag viewers down in the 94 minute run time.
Despite this fallback, Stephen Chung’s It’s All Gonna Break is a marvelous triumph in the music documentary genre.
Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story (Bruce David Klein, 2024)
Directed by Bruce David Klein, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story showcases the extensive career of Liza Minnelli through the premier decades of Broadway and showtunes. It tracks her performances such as in Chicago and Cabaret, and crafting “Liza with a Z.” The film features archival footage and interviews of friends and associates, including with Minnelli herself.
The daughter of director Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland, Minnelli had to distinguish herself in the flourishing entertainment landscape. The film touches on Minnelli’s various relationships to other pop culture figures, such as broadway director Bob Fosse, and designer Halston. Revivalist performer Michael Feinstein acts as a stand-in narrator, and Minnelli provides catty whip-smart comments on her career touchstones.
As fantastical as the documentary is, its crux is to state that Minnelli is much more than the supporting cast of her peers. But unfortunately, the film is hindered by a disjointed episodic format, tonally inconsistent editing, and a skin-deep relationship to its subject, which feels more like 104 minutes of ovation rather than an intimate character study.
By the tail end of the documentary, it feels as though the filmmakers are protective of Minnelli’s public image, without investigating her complex relationship to the limelight. It makes for abrupt editing and tonal shifts between chapters, dancing between subjects like her romantic history and relationship to their parents. Some of the most tribulating periods of her life, such as her desire to settle with a family, and an admission to rehab for alcohol and tranquilizer use, are left until the remaining fifteen minutes of the film.
If you’re an established fan of Minnelli’s career or you’re just learning about her, the film is an excellent summarization of her talents and cultural impact. I just wish it got as close to the woman off-stage as well as it captured her persona.
Paul Anka: His Way (John Maggio, 2024)
It’s a challenge to imagine one man having a songwriting career that spans over seven decades and 900 songs. It’s another challenge altogether to summarize such a life in film.
The mark of Canadian songwriter Paul Anka is indisputable. Director Paul Maggio’s documentary, titled after the swan song Anka, serves as a greatest hits compilation of Paul Anka’s relentless career, and his transitions as a performer decade by decade.
At age 14, Anka left Ottawa for New York City to pitch himself to major record executives, regarding his ability to reinterpret pop songs of the era. Anka quickly climbed the pop billboard ladder, touring the country by bus with the likes of Buddy Holly to The Rat Pack. A bright eyed, personable charmer from across the water, he performed in notable east coast Mob nightclubs like The Copacabana.
Anka’s career led him to produce over 30 solo albums, writing with titans of pop music. Current audiences would most likely recognize his smash hits, “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” or “Puppy Love”, or the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
John Maggio’s documentary does very well with production and pacing, switching between archival footage, the 1962 documentary Lonely Boy, and contemporary candid video of Anka at 83, being chauffeured from one concert hall to another, still performing with a gusto and timbre that outshines performers half his age. However, the film seems to be a depiction of Anka’s career by Anka himself, considering there aren’t many interviews outside of his own close family and associates.
Paul Anka: His Way reflects on the decades Anka spent ceaselessly penning the next great hit, and his need to feel his audience’s affection. It is, all things considered, a decent depiction of a Canadian musical icon.
