THE GREAT ROCK ’N’ ROLL SWINDLE
1980, Virgin Films, 103 min, UK, Dir: Julien Temple

“To be bad is good. To be good is simply boring.” - Malcolm McLaren. The urge to self-mythologize is written into rock's DNA and in 1978 the Sex Pistols story - who did what for whom, and why - was still up for grabs. THE GREAT ROCK ’N’ ROLL SWINDLE is manager Malcolm McLaren's attempt to write himself into history as the band's creator, manipulator and ideologue, and to steal back from the music industry what he felt it had stolen from rock & roll. Julien Temple's bizarre and hilarious fictional documentary charts the rise and fall of punk's most notorious band through the eyes of its calculating manager. Mixing animation and live footage of some of the Pistols' most electrifying performances, the film presents the band's success as an elaborate scam perpetrated by McLaren to make "a million pounds" at the expense of record companies, outraged moralists, the British royal family, and even the fans and band members themselves.


ROCKSHOW
2013, Eagle Rock, 141 min, UK, Dir: Jack Priestley

This newly restored reissue of the 1980 Paul McCartney & Wings documentary includes 30 songs from Wings’ 1976 North American tour, shot at four concerts in New York, Seattle and Los Angeles - part of the Wings Over the World tour that spawned the chart-topping triple live album “Wings Over America.” “Live and Let Die,” “Band on the Run” and “Silly Love Songs” are but a few of the Wings hits heard here, along with several songs from leader Paul McCartney’s Beatles years. Released in a truncated version in 1980, this is the first time the film will be seen in its entirety, along with an interview with Sir Paul exclusive to theatrical screenings.


CHILDREN OF WAR
2009, Peregrine Pictures, 75 min, USA, Dir: Bryan Single

Filmed in the war zone of northern Uganda, CHILDREN OF WAR follows a group of child soldiers as they exit the battlefield, enter the sanctuary of a rehabilitation center and undergo a remarkable process of trauma therapy and emotional healing.


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