Film Festival Focus
Music from the Music Sales Group featured prominently in the latest crop of films to grace the film festival circuit. The venerable Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah offered up its usual cornucopia of independent movies this January, and our music helped tell the stories of quite a few. Our composer Melissa Parmenter scored both The Shock Doctrine and The Killer Inside Me (Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba), the latter with another of our composers Joel Cadbury. The music of Pulitzer Prize winner John Adams was used to score I Am Love – Io Sono L’Amore starring Tilda Swinton. Set in the 80s, Skateland features Blondie’s 1980 megahit “The Tide Is High.” The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cheri Currie, features Jett’s rock anthem “I Love Rock and Roll.” Louisiana-born Joe Simon’s 60s R&B ballad “Teenager’s Prayer” is well-placed in Welcome to the Rileys starring James Gandolfini and set in New Orleans. Ryan Gosling serenades Michelle Williams with “You Always Hurt the One You Love” in Blue Valentine. “Le Marchand de Bonheur” finds itself in The Extra Man in the good company of Kevin Kline, John C. Reilly and Katie Holmes. Through our own Storyville Records, one of the world’s greatest jazz record labels and the oldest independent jazz label in Europe, we licensed the master of “Perdido Street Stomp” for use in the documentary Lucky. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary this February, and Music Sales dropped by to help celebrate. The groundbreaking documentary When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun features “Keys to the Kingdom” by UNKLE. All in all, our music played its part in a diverse and distinctive array of new films.