Talking Dreams

Kick Out the Jams: The Story of XFM

Titled after the first-ever song to play on their airwaves, Kick Out the Jams follows the development of XFM from its rebellious pirate radio roots in the early 90’s, through to its official FM radio launch in 1997 as a major platform for launching alternative talent into the mainstream. The doc deep-dives into the struggles and influence of the station which gave rise to the likes of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, whose global hits The Office and The Ricky Gervais Show were originally developed while working at the radio station.

Jolly Roger

"Jolly Roger" could mean Roger Schawinski. But by definition, a "Jolly Roger" is the classic black pirate flag with skull and crossbones. This documentary tells the unvarnished story of the Swiss radio pirates who emerged in the 1970s. The focus is on Radio 24 in its wild years, when Schawinski's team broadcast from Italy, with the strongest FM station in the world at the time, straight down from Pizzo Groppera, 130 kilometers all the way to the Zurich area. Supported by numerous original documents from private filmmakers and from the SRG archives, the viewer relives the absurd radio war between David and Goliath that lasted almost four years, 24 years after this war between the radio pirates and the state power began on November 13, 1979. The many known and unknown fighters, who rallied behind their Radio Winkelried Schawinski in 1979 to help usher Switzerland into a new media age, remember the good and bad times, the demonstrations and the numerous threatened and actual closures.

Ceremony

When the Nuxalk trace the vanished ooligan to a land claim filed the very day smallpox arrived, their radio station becomes courtroom, confessional and conjuring ground; an older law insists: the fish return when the people do.

Sex and Broadcasting

SEX AND BROADCASTING is a feature length documentary about New Jersey's WFMU, the world's strangest and most unique radio station, and one man's attempt to keep it alive in the face of recession, the persistent threat of commercial media, and the challenges that come with keeping a rebellious group of outsiders together.

Radio Free Newport: The True Story of WNOP

Imagine an AM Radio Station with a dawn to dusk license that played nothing but jazz and comedy records. Did I mention it FLOATED in the Ohio River and changed the culture of a Community? The history of Cincinnati Jazz is long, wide, diverse and in the case of WNOP sometimes beyond belief. Saxophonist turned filmmaker Christopher Braig's second Film will focus on the people, music, and cities that kept "The Jazz Ark" sailing for 42 years from 1968 to 2000.

Little Pond in Main Street

Street vendors in Korea are almost like a national institution, they are so widespread and relied upon. In Little Pond in Main Street a group of vendors band together to create a community radio station but come into conflict with other groups, as well as the government trying to shut them down.

88.9 Radio Redfern

An observational documentary which looks at Sydney’s first community Aboriginal radio station, 88.9 Radio Redfern. Set against a backdrop of contemporary Aboriginal music, 88.9 Radio Redfern offers a special and rare exploration of the people, attitudes and philosophies behind the lead up to a different type of celebration of Australia’s Bicentennial Year. Throughout 1988, 88.9 Radio Redfern became an important focal point for communication and solidarity within the Aboriginal community. The film reveals how urban blacks are adapting social structures such as the mass media to serve their needs.

Libre antenne

Good Morning Austria

A working day in Austria, 2004. Nine modern working-class heroes are engaged in their daily struggle of survival, accompanied, motivated and influenced by the country’s most popular radio station.

Carl Gustav Jung

In September 1957, the philosopher Carl Gustav Jung was interviewed in Houston. Part of that interview was filmed in 16mm. After reviewing the images obtained, the footage was censored in many countries, ending up in oblivion, lost in a warehouse in Central America. Just 50 years later, after several years of searching for images around the world and a difficult reconstruction and restoration, the director Shang Solomon offers us on the big screen almost all of the interview with Jung, known as the main opponent to the theories of Freud and an eminence of the Philosophy and the History of Psychology.

CFNY: The Spirit of Radio

In 1976, CFNY launched in a small suburban house just north of Toronto and went on to become one of the most influential punk, new wave and alternative radio stations in the world. This is the story of their mission to bring the most exciting music in the world to the masses. It's also a story of the personalities, lawsuits, bankruptcies, concerts, and listener protests that went along with it.

Jak se dělal Radiojournal

Générations Hip Hop

Musical compilation of live performances by French hip-hop artists.

We Want The Airwaves: The WFNX Story

After 30 years as Boston's fiercely independent Alternative music station, WFNX announces that it is being sold to Clear Channel Communications, and news of the sale rattles generations of music fans who had grown to believe that WFNX would always exist at 101.7 on their FM dial. As the station counts down its last sixty days on the air, current and former WFNX employees reminisce about the station's rich history and reflect on what the sale of this perennial David in a land of radio Goliaths says about the changing ways we relate to music and media.

Nuxalk Radio

A day in the life of 91.1, Nuxalk Radio, a radio station built to help keep the Nuxalk language alive while broadcasting the laws of the lands and waters.

Les ondes déferlantes

Radio Galère, an independent radio station in Marseille, has been on the air for over 40 years, giving voice to what we hear far too little of: the anger, the struggles, the hopes, and the stories of those whom society renders invisible in their daily lives. Through its volunteers and staff, the station is a place where speaking out becomes a political act and a tool for empowerment.

When Moyles Met the Radio 1 Breakfast DJs

DJ Chris Moyles looks at how the Radio 1 Breakfast Show has reflected life in Britain over the past 40 years, as he meets his predecessors in the early morning slot.

Radio Star - Die AFN-Story

Documentary about the American radio station AFN (American Forces Network), which was founded in 1943 to accompany the American troops in Western Central Europe. In the post-war period, it stood for the American way of life like almost no other station, wherever it could be received.

35000 Watts: The Story of College Radio

The students behind the mic and the bands they made famous tell the story of the youth and music culture that originated, and later flourished, on the airwaves of American colleges and universities, establishing a new generational voice and a new path to success for many alumni and artists.

Feast Your Ears: The Story of WHFS 102.3 FM

Built out of “a pile of radio junk,” Bethesda, Maryland’s WHFS was a music fan’s dream of a radio station: the place on the dial to hear music listeners loved and new tunes they soon would, all with an anything-goes mentality and an ear for the sounds of social change. This doc pays loving tribute to free-form radio and WHFS’s influence over FM stations across the US from the 1960s to the 1980s. All good things come to an end, and so did the disc-jockey-driven format that WHFS pioneered and made successful, but its legacy lives on. The station’s DJs relate its history with passion in this film that captures the tenor of an era, abetted by reminiscences of performers including Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal, Jesse Colin Young, and others whose music found its way to ears and minds eager for something more than the same old Top 40 programming.