Screen/Society--"Rewind & Play" (Alain Gomis, 2022) | 2024 French Film Festival

REWIND & PLAY
(Alain Gomis, 2022, 65min, France/Germany, French w/English subtitles, DCP)

Screening as part of the 2024 French Film Festival
Jan 26 - Feb 10, 2024

In December 1969, legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk ended his European concert tour with a performance at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Before the show, he was invited to appear on a French television program to perform and answer questions in an intimate setting. Using newly discovered footage from this recording, director Alain Gomis (Félicité) reveals the disconnect between Monk and his interviewer, Henri Renaud, whose unwittingly trivializing approach conveys the casual racism and exploitation prevalent in the music industry at large. A fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary with extraordinary, rarely-seen performances, Rewind & Play offers a unique opportunity to see Monk in a way that very few people did.

"A minor masterwork of historical investigation and a fervent tribute to the epochally great musician... Monk's solo performances [are] spectacular." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker

"With Gomis's arrangement of footage, viewers bear witness to Monk as he subtly challenges his interlocutor... and ultimately Monk's effortlessly innovative compositions." - Anthony Hawley, Hyperallergic

"The brilliance of the film is the efficiency with which it exposes the racist power structures that framed much of Monk's career, and by extension the careers of so many Black musicians." - Darren Hughes, Filmmaker Magazine