LA BRUNE ET MOI (1980, France, 50 min.)

Considered by many who lived through it to be the high point of rock 'n' roll in France, the years 1977 - 1982 saw a burst of creative angst in Gallic music. Bands like Métal Urbain, The Dogs, Bijou, Asphalt Jungle and Ici Paris heard the noise going on in England and quickly echoed back. Unlike in the sixties where France was a good 5 years behind the U.S.A. these musicians were concurrent with The Dead Kennedy's, X and The Germs.

Unfortunately though, punk was a subculture in France and insufficient record sales allowed these bands to slip into obscurity. They were also overshadowed by more mainstream acts like Telephone and Starshooter.

But in 1979 Philipe Puicouyoul 'borrowed' the the camera gear from the production he was working on during the day to film a punk rock love story at night. La brune et moi - a play on the French title for the American 50s rock 'n' roll film The Girl Can't Help (La blonde et moi) - was shot in one week and a Saturday. Like it's American counterpart, the story is a thin prop for the rockin' performances.

The film stars scenester Anoushka and actor Pierre Clementi (The Conformist, Belle de jour) and features the following bands on the soundtrack:

Ici Paris, Artefact, Astroflash, Edith Nylon, The Questions (really known as Les Lous), The Party, Marquis de Sade, Dogs, Go-Go Pigalles, Taxi Girl,Les Prives

La Brune played for a week in a small theater in the left bank in 1980 and vanished. The Cinematheque Francaise has a copy of the film but the negative and original master audio are all gone.

LA BRUNE ET MOI trailer

PUNK COCKTAIL - ZURICH SCENE 1976-1980 (2006, Switzerland, 60 min.)

This intoxicating concoction of images and sounds from the ‘70s is a great way to discover a little-seen side of Zurich. In 2006, director René Uhlmann fashioned footage he shot at the end of that decade of the city’s Punk, New Wave and Art scene into a Punk Cocktail: a mixture of performance footage, scenes of Zurich’s punk life and animation all set to original local music from the time.

Punk Cocktail is a sixty minute film, directed and shot by René Uhlmann during the Zurich punk scene between 1976 – 80. Uhlmann was a fixture as concerts with his Super 8 camera and caught the live action of such infamous Swiss bands as the Dogboys, Mother’s Ruin, Nasal Boys, TNT, Troppo, Sperma and, of course, Kleenex.

LOUDER, FASTER, SHORTER (USA, 14 min.)

"San Francisco, March 21, 1978. In the intense, original punk rock scene at the Mabuhay Gardens (the only club in town which would allow it), the Avengers, Dils, Mutants, Sleepers, and UXA played a benefit for striking Kentucky coal miners ('Punks Against Oppression!'), raising $3,300. The check was actually mailed and received. One of the only surviving 16 mm color documents of this short-lived era. The filmmaker was Mindaugis Bagdon, a member of Search & Destroy, the publication which chronicled and catalyzed the punk rock 'youth culture' rebellion of the late '70s."