Music films and Music City — why, they go together like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Kentucky. Years into its mission to brand itself as a go-to festival for music-related films, the NaFF amps up for features spanning a variety of locales, subjects and musical genres. Festival programmers are high on the crowd-pleaser For Once in My Life (7:30 p.m. Friday, April 16; also 2 p.m. Saturday, April 17), focusing on a Miami Goodwill band that overcomes its members' mental and physical disabilities to form a kick-ass soul revue.
The NaFF staff is just as pumped about the North American premiere of The Concert (7:15 p.m. Friday, April 16), a French drama about a former Bolshoi conductor's stealth comeback that stars Inglourious Basterds femme fatale Melanie Laurent and veteran actors Miou-Miou and Francois Berleand. We're looking forward to Rejoice & Shout (11:45 a.m. Saturday, April 17), Don McGlynn's tribute to two centuries of rafter-raising African-American gospel music, featuring greats such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Dixie Hummingbirds, Mahalia Jackson and Smokey Robinson.
Perhaps best known for his roles in Napoleon Dynamite and as Roger Linus on Lost, actor turned director Jon Gries sets some luckless contenders on the road to a Nashville singing contest in his comic feature Pickin' and Grinnin' (6 p.m. Saturday, April 17). For a real-life take on the fantasy of conquering Nashville, Steve Condon's Radio On: The Shawn & Hobby Band Company (8 p.m. Tuesday & 3:15 p.m. Wednesday) follows the Pittsburgh duo who now pack 'em in at The Second Fiddle on Lower Broad. They perform after the Tuesday show at the downtown Hard Rock Cafe with fellow doc subject Chris Von Sneidern (see p. 24).
If nonfiction is more to your taste in general, the NaFF also provides docs on James Blunt ('Til You're Told to Stop, 9:15 p.m. Friday & noon Saturday), "New Zealand's favorite lesbian country singers" (The Topp Twins, 9 p.m. Sunday & 6 p.m. Tuesday) and an Irish filmmaker's often absent jazz-bassist father (The Bass Player, 3 p.m. Sunday & 4 p.m. Monday).
Also, while it isn't technically a music documentary, Jim Rivett's Westbound (7:15 p.m. Tuesday), about the wild life and wondrous woodworking of Adolph Vandertie, the Grand Duke of the Hobos, contains music by some rising Nashville stars, the duo Sam & Ruby. They'll perform at the closing-night party April 22 at The Cannery Ballroom — by which point you'll be clamoring to hear some music in the flesh.
