{"id":73455,"date":"2026-03-04T12:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krakowfilmfestival.pl\/?p=73455"},"modified":"2026-03-04T12:39:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:39:58","slug":"a-jazzman-from-outer-space-songs-for-a-whale-and-neo-zombie-post-folk-more-films-from-the-docfilmmusic-competition-unveiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krakowfilmfestival.pl\/en\/a-jazzman-from-outer-space-songs-for-a-whale-and-neo-zombie-post-folk-more-films-from-the-docfilmmusic-competition-unveiled\/","title":{"rendered":"A Jazzman from Outer Space, Songs for a Whale, and Neo-Zombie Post-Folk: More Films from the DocFilmMusic Competition Unveiled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From a city scarred by racial segregation and the legend of Sun Ra, across the open ocean and an attempt to establish musical contact with a humpback whale, to an Estonian duo conquering world stages with zombie-folk \u2013 we present the next titles in the DocFilmMusic competition at the 66th<\/sup> Krakow Film Festival. They will be competing for the Golden Heynal, demonstrating just how far a music documentary can reach. Three films, three distinct tonalities, and one common denominator: sound that triggers memory, forges connections, and transcends boundaries \u2013 between people, between generations, and even between species.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although each of these films operates in a different register \u2013 from a historical-biographical essay, through an oceanic meditation on interspecies communication, to an intimate documentary about life on tour and beyond it \u2013 all are united by the conviction that music is something more than just entertainment. It becomes a language of memory, a tool for building relationships, and an impulse towards change \u2013 opening new chapters, summoning courage, and pushing past one’s own limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Jazzman from Outer Space<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Magic City \u2013 Birmingham According to Sun Ra<\/em><\/strong>, filmmakers Guillaume Maupin and Pablo Guarise \u2013 working in close collaboration with the local community \u2013 return to Birmingham, Alabama:<\/strong> the birthplace of Herman Poole Blount, later known as Sun Ra, a jazz icon and pioneer of Afrofuturist imagination. The film guides the viewer beginning with the story of an artist who presented himself as a visitor from outer space to a very particular place and its history \u2013 a city of racial segregation, inequality, and the memory of violence, but also of the former glory of the ‘Magic City’, now preserved mainly in archives and scattered traces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Magic City \u2013 Birmingham According to Sun Ra, dir. Guillaume Maupin, Pablo Guarise <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Magic City \u2013 Birmingham According to Sun Ra, dir. Guillaume Maupin, Pablo Guarise <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By juxtaposing archival materials with contemporary images of Birmingham, the filmmakers sketch a portrait of the musician and a portrait of the community that gave birth to his imagination \u2013 one turned towards the future yet deeply rooted in the experience of the American South. It is no coincidence that the film opens with Sun Ra’s own words: ‘They say that \u201chistory repeats itself.\u201d But \u201chistory\u201d is only his story. You haven\u2019t heard my story yet\u2026 History repeats itself, but my story is endless.’ It is precisely this tension between the recurring violence of history and the undiminished power of imagination and ‘cosmic jazz’ that lends this narrative its own hypnotic rhythm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Songs of\/for a Whale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Sun Ra reached for the cosmos, the protagonist of The Musician and The Whale<\/em><\/strong> moves in the opposite direction \u2013 beneath the surface of the ocean \u2013 in an attempt to make contact with a different, non-human world. Director Valentin Paoli approaches the subject of music from a completely different perspective, telling the story of a renowned French composer and DJ who draws inspiration from recordings of whales swimming towards boats when his compositions are played. Rone therefore sets out on the ocean alongside marine biologists and specialists to discover whether music might serve as a form of communication with a humpback whale \u2013 and if not a fully-fledged ‘dialogue’, then at least an attentive gesture directed towards another species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Musician and The Whale, dir. Valentin Paoli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Musician and The Whale, dir. Valentin Paoli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Paoli steers this tale with tenderness and visual panache, transforming a scientific\/artistic experiment into a moving story about listening, attentiveness, and the limits of human communication. The film does not only ask whether contact is possible but also interrogates humanity’s readiness and sensitivity to listen to that which eludes familiar codes and languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Puul(uu)p non-fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humour, self-deprecation, and the pulse of everyday life resound through Puuluup \u2013 Cables in the Car<\/strong> by Taavi Arus, who follows two middle-aged Estonian musicians with warmth and a superb sense of rhythm. Both are fathers, partners, people thoroughly immersed in the ordinary \u2013 who unexpectedly find themselves on international stages, and even at Eurovision. The duo Puuluup not only revives a nearly forgotten, virtually extinct instrument known as the talharpa<\/em>, but have also constructed an entirely original musical language \u2013 underpinned by wry humour and a punk sensibility \u2013 around its distinctive sound. When asked what exactly it is they play, they answer without hesitation: zombie-folk, or more precisely \u2013 neo-zombie post-folk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Puuluup \u2013 Cables in the Car, dir. Taavi Arus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Puuluup \u2013 Cables in the Car, dir. Taavi Arus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Arus sets concert-stage energy against domestic bustle, demonstrating that late-arriving success need not mean a rupture with everyday life, but may in fact spring directly from it. The result is a warm, funny, and thoroughly musical portrait of artists who, in their own delightfully unhinged fashion, take on ageism \u2013 reminding us that it is never too late to fulfil one’s dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selected titles from the DocFilmMusic competition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n