Since its inception in 2013, Doc’n Roll pageant has sought to supply a platform for among the music and artwork world’s most area of interest and underrepresented figures, placing the tales of marginalised voices and new documentary-makers onto the screens of among the UK’s most revered cultural establishments, from the BFI to the Barbican.
Co-founded and programmed by Vanessa Lobon-Garcia and Colm Forde, what started as a low-key try to assist display a handful of subcultural movies exterior the capital has become a year-round undertaking, with premieres up and down the nation alongside screenings across the globe, from New York to Dubai. On the centre of it nonetheless, nonetheless, is Doc’n Roll Pageant: a programme of 20-plus movies, together with world and UK premieres, which can present at cinemas in London, Brighton and Dublin from 23 October to 9 November.
Although the undertaking has scaled up, the thought on the coronary heart of it stays the identical. ‘We’re in search of issues that aren’t the traditional, cookie-cutter stuff that will go straight to Sky Arts, that’ve been made by the labels to assist promote data,’ explains Forde. ‘It’s about displaying those that wouldn’t usually get a glance in, just like the Huge Mama Thornton movie this yr. I am actually completely satisfied to carry that to the Barbican as a result of I do know there’s an viewers there for it, however that type of factor actually flies beneath the radar of different movie programmers. They take a look at these movies and assume they’re an excessive amount of work to market. However that is the place we actually discovered our area of interest: giving a break to topics and filmmakers that actually deserve it.’
Doc’n Roll aren’t making an attempt to compete with the present London Movie Pageant, or any of the circuit’s main gamers; as an alternative, they’ve carved out an area of their very own primarily based on intense fandom – the sort that’s prepared to journey. Final yr, they’d individuals fly over from Eire to the capital simply to look at a 23-minute quick about punk band Fats White Household; he’s already been messaged by one fan this yr who’s planning on driving 238 miles to get to a screening of Felix, Dare To Dream – a doc about tattooist Felix Leu. There are larger names amongst the 2025 programme – the UK premieres of Glenn Matlock’s Intercourse Pistols documentary, and one other about Boy George and Tradition Membership – nevertheless it’s within the embrace of the true underground that Doc’n Roll stands aside.
They function independently, with out company sponsors – Forde could be open to working with the fitting individuals however has additionally readily turned down the improper ones, who’ve tried to place restrictions on their decidedly leftfield programming. ‘For those who take a look at the medium to giant festivals internationally, they’re all sponsored by banks who’re art-washing all of them,’ he says. ‘I’d like to be working with a model that I actually imagine in, that is not a financial institution or an insurance coverage firm. However the silver lining of not at present having a sponsor is that we do not have to bend the foundations to accommodate any bullshit.’
As a substitute, Doc’n Roll’s ethos stays impressively pure: to create, as Forde describes, ‘a little bit of a vibe for individuals to fulfill like-minded people who find themselves into weirdo stuff’. In a saturated market of big-budget Hollywood biopics, Doc’n Roll is the antithesis – a decidedly DIY-minded pageant creating an area for the misfits. ‘These biopics are so drained of the actual spirit of all of it,’ Forde says. ‘Whereas we simply wished to place our love of leftfield different music and impartial documentary movie collectively on this loopy factor.’
Colm Forde’s picks of Doc’n Roll Pageant 2025
(Picture credit score: Dave Allen)
Huge Mama Thornton: I Can’t Be Anybody However Me
‘Huge Mama Thornton influenced individuals like Elvis, however she would play what they known as the Chitlin’ Circuit again within the day, when Black artists couldn’t keep in the identical lodging because the white artists they have been touring with. She’s doing what she loves, however as a queer, butch, Black girl, even inside her personal group, that will have been fairly daunting. It’s an actual story of resilience and survival, after which sadly, the traditional story of white artists coming in and being profitable from her artwork and her good songs.’
A Method To Die: The Brief Movies of Coil
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Doc n Roll Pageant)
‘It’s a group of seven quick movies that have been all shot in Hackney within the late ’70s/early ’80s, displaying the deindustrialisation of the world however via fairly a heavy, queer, sadomasochistic perspective. It was shot in Tremendous 8 and 16 by the band – Peter Christopherson and John Steadiness – again once they have been artwork faculty youngsters and simply beginning out, filming the antics of what they have been getting as much as behind the scenes of their gigs. There’s a hilarious quick movie in it that exhibits the economic extraction of semen to be bought on; it’s some mad, weirdo shit nevertheless it’s hilarious for those who’re into darkish humour.’
Transfer Ya Physique: The Beginning of Home
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Doc n Roll Pageant)
‘It’s coming from the political facet of the start of home, and the gerrymandering inside the southern Chicago ghettos the place the music got here from, which continues to be a deeply disadvantaged space. The movie isn’t simply an A–Z of how home music then unfold into London and Manchester and Ibiza; it’s informed from a really political angle, when it comes to the Black voter and the dearth of entry to actual democracy that the Black voter nonetheless has.’
Rockers Don’t Cease: The Revival of Rockers Revenge
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Doc n Roll pageant)
‘The movie is a manufacturing by document producer Arthur Baker, who was their key patron again within the mid-to-late ’80s when he discovered the band working in a document retailer. The band influenced quite a lot of early home music; they’d an awesome break within the UK on Prime of the Pops however couldn’t afford to fly to London for 4 nights, in order that they handed on it and petered out. It’s an fascinating story about second possibilities, and about working-class voices.’
Butthole Surfers: The Gap Fact and Nothing Butt
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Doc n Roll Pageant)
‘The documentary units the scene for the legendary Texan punk band and thru the views of different musicians, comedians and those that received swept up in the entire buzz of their reside exhibits. In addition to the music, there’s the context of them going in opposition to the grain of Reagan and Reaganomics, which paralleled what was occurring on the time within the UK with Thatcherism.’
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