The Dumfries Music Conference Presents | Rebel Dread (15) Plus Q&A With Don Letts
- RBC Film Theatre Mill Road Dumfries, Scotland, DG2 7BE United Kingdom (map)
Click on film title below for more info.
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In his wildly popular Broadway show American Utopia, David Byrne delivers an exhilarating rush of iconic songs, infectious energy and pure theatrical joy. Following the huge big-screen success of Stop Making Sense, and with Byrne returning to the UK this summer including a headline appearance at Latitude Festival, Spike Lee transforms the celebrated production into an electrifying cinematic experience bursting with astounding performances, inventive choreography and political urgency.
Flowing like an iridescent dream vision, the film fuses work by James Baldwin, Janelle Monáe and Kurt Schwitters with exhilarating renditions of Byrne’s solo work and Talking Heads classics.
Joyous, urgent and utterly crowd-pleasing, Byrne and his co-performers light up the screen and burn down the house.
In the summer of 2021, Kenyan-Scottish, singer and songwriter Beldina Odenyo is on the cusp of stardom. Hailed as a fierce, uncompromising artist with a voice that can silence a room, she is working on her eagerly awaited debut album. In October, she headlines at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall. Barefoot and cloaked in black, Bel delivers a performance that leaves the audience spellbound. Promoters and musicians are convinced this will launch her career.
Two weeks later, Bel takes her own life. She is 31.
BEL tells the story of the artist behind that voice — and the sister determined to ensure Bel’s music will continue to live on after her death.
BEL will also feature a Q&A with Louise Lockwood and Leah McAleer (director and Bel's sister). Given the nature of the documentary the discussion will not be open to questions from the audience.
The screening is in association with D&G HSCP Women's Network for National Inclusion Week (14 – 20 September).
OASIS: DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER charts Liam and Noel Gallagher’s triumphant reunion tour, Oasis Live ‘25, one of the most anticipated rock ‘n’ roll comebacks of our time. The film is an unapologetically uplifting account of the biggest musical event of 2025, capturing the experience and emotions of the band and their fans across the world. The unique perspective includes rehearsal, backstage, and onstage access as well as the first joint interviews with Noel and Liam in over 20 years. Alongside the band’s sold-out world tour, the film also explores the profound emotional impact of this phenomenal global cultural moment and what their music means to audiences and generations worldwide.
"OASIS: DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER contains several sequences with flashing lights that may affect those who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy or have other photosensitivities.”
The 50th Anniversary of punk is being celebrated with a new documentary from internationally renowned producer/director Danny Garcia - also responsible for recent docs on Stiv Bators, Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders and The Fuzztones and last year's The Rise and Fall of The Clash Redux - Vive Le Punk focuses on four bands formed during the glory days of punk - Sham 69, 999, Ruts DC and The Boys - and still carrying the torch five decades on.
Featuring new and revealingly candid interviews with all the bands as well as punk icons Charlie Harper, Dr. John Cooper Clarke, Gaye Advert and other noted punk luminaries, the film examines the history of the scene and discusses the meaning and purpose of punk today.
When the British colonised Kenya, they took control of prime tea-growing land that still supplies the global market today. As a local Kenyan journalist investigates a legal battle over stolen ancestral land, dark secrets are exposed and ongoing abuses on plantations run by major multinationals become clear. Set against the richness of the landscape, Kikuyu Land is a poetic, stunningly cinematic dive into a complex legacy that refuses to stay buried.
Presented in partnership with Dumfries Fairtrade to mark Fairtrade Fortnight. Followed by comments on the Fairtrade standards for tea and informal discussions over cups of tea.
Maria, a primary school teacher doing her best to inspire a class of 10-year-olds, is stifled by one unruly and chaotic student. With her career in question and the child's behaviour spiralling, she makes a series of bad decisions that lead to her accidentally taking and locking this "bad apple" in her home. Maria tries desperately to backtrack, but when the class starts flourishing and the staff and parents are thrilled with the improvement, she finds herself in a very complicated predicament.
Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival, Everybody Digs Bill Evans is a biographical drama film about the famous jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans.
1961. Bill Evans is playing with what he considers the perfect musical trio until tragedy strikes in the premature death of his bass player, Scott LaFaro - his musical soulmate. Traumatised by grief, Evans stops playing for the first time since his childhood. A tug-of-war between personal torment and the seemingly safer haven of familial love will see Evans oscillate between New York and suburbia, his genius always bubbling beneath the surface.
Directed by Grant Gee and starring Anders Danielsen Lie, Bill Pullman and Laurie Metcalf, the film is written by Mark O’Halloran and based on Owen Martell’s novel Intermission.
Filmed at the National Galleries of Scotland during the 2025 retrospective, ‘Andy Goldsworthy: 50 Years’, this film captures a dialogue between artist Andy Goldsworthy and art historian, author, and broadcaster Andrew Graham Dixon.
The documentary offers a look behind the scenes of Goldsworthy’s largest and most ambitious indoor exhibition. Surrounded by new installations created specifically for the show, the pair explore the core environmental philosophies, fleeting natural materials, and creative ideas that have defined the artist's extraordinary half-century career.
There will be a Q & A Session with Andrew Graham-Dixon after the film.
In 1960, sixteen newly independent African countries enter the United Nations, a political earthquake that shifts the majority vote from the colonial powers to the global south. Congo becomes the arena in which the battle over the UN is fought. As Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe at the UN-top in reaction to the neo-colonial grab of the resources of newly independent Congo, UN delegates from African Countries are blackmailed. In an incredulous twist Patrice Lumumba’s assassination unites the Afro-Asian block, demanding the UN General Assembly to vote for immediate worldwide decolonization.
Jazz and decolonisation fuse in this upbeat historical rollercoaster, set through a quartet of voices from an activist, a diplomat, a writer and a world leader. Starring Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Malcolm X and Nikita Khrushchev, and many more. In Dutch, English, Russia, French and Arabic with English subtitles.
Part of the Power, Corruption and Lies on Screen Season, a themed run of films exploring how power can be misused, how corruption develops, and how truth can be manipulated. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat exposes how political power is exercised behind the scenes, and how governments, corporations and international institutions manipulate events for their own interests.
- Posted In: Rebel Dread
- Tagged: Music, Documentary, October, DMC, 15