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THE SECRET DISCO REVOLUTION - The Party That Changed The World. A good documentary on 70's disco music made in 2012 on the disco era featuring interview with its key musicians. == Genre: Documentary, Musical & Performing Arts, Comedy, Special Interest Written & Directed By: Jamie Kastner Runtime: 1 hr. 24 min. By Screen Media Films ==== The disco era, long dismissed as a time of hedonistic excess, has been gravely misunderstood. Revisionist historians now argue the era was in fact an important time of protest: liberating gays, blacks and women. The Secret Disco Revolution juxtaposes disco revisionists against revealing new interviews with the era's biggest stars: The Village People, Gloria Gaynor, Kool and the Gang... A goldmine of rarely seen stock footage, and enough disco hits to shake your booty straight back to 1978. Interview Subjects Include: Gloria Gaynor - (I Will Survive) Village People (YMCA, In The Navy) Robert “Kool” Bell – Kool and the Gang Harry Wayne “K.C.” Casey – KC and the Sunshine Band Thelma Houston – (Don’t Leave Me This Way) Martha Wash – (Two Tons of Fun, It’s Raining Men) Henri Belolo – Producer/Lyricist, Village People Tom Moulton – Inventor: Disco Remix, 12“ Single Vince Aletti – Journalist, Rolling Stone, Record World Alice Echols – Author “Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture” Peter Shapiro – Author “Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco” Nicky Siano – DJ, The Gallery, Studio 54 Anita Pointer – Pointer Sisters Larry Harris – VP, Casablanca Records, Author “And Party Everyday” Maxine Nightingale – (Right Back Where We Started From) Evelyn “Champagne” King – (Shame, Love Come Down) The Trammps – (Disco Inferno) Marc Benecke – Doorman, Studio 54 Carmen D’Alessio – Publicist, Studio 54 Joanne Horowitz – Publicist, Studio 54 ==== Beschrijving: The disco era, long dismissed as a time of hedonistic excess, has been gravely misunderstood. Revisionist historians now argue the era was in fact an important time of protest: liberating gays, blacks and women. THE SECRET DISCO REVOLUTION juxtaposes disco revisionists against revealing new interviews with the era's biggest stars: Gloria Gaynor (I Will Survive), Village People (YMCA, In The Navy), Robert “Kool“ Bell from Kool and the Gang, and Harry Wayne “K.C.“ Casey - KC and the Sunshine Band. ==== From: So it turns out that disco was actually a revolutionary tool that ended the oppression of women and black and gay people in the US. Who knew? Disco ... more than just a cheesy, glittery music genre, according to The Secret Disco Revolution. I like disco as much as the next person, which is to say I like it at night, in moderate helpings, and only when accompanied by spirits. Disco has long been the musical genre to caricature rather than savour, best enjoyed in the background on hazy nights out rather than as a legitimate musical experience. So presented with the opportunity to sit through a two-hour disco documentary at the London film festival, I was a bit circumspect. As you shimmy through the world of disco, you start to believe in its subversive nature. Finding its home in dark nightclubs where class, gender, race and sexual boundaries disappeared completely, early disco was the music that brought people together – all without the music industry's hegemony over the radio and Billboard charts. Meanwhile, the likes of Gloria Gaynor, Thelma Houston, Martha Wash, KC from KC and the Sunshine Band and Kool from Kool and the Gang bring us back to the reality of being a disco musician, recalling riding the wave from being an underground hit to a record-industry product that was made cheap and sold big. None of them see themselves as emissaries of the revolution, but by this point you feel a bit sorry for them for not understanding their political worth. KC takes himself particularly seriously, still bitter at the music moguls who tore him away from funk and pushed him to the beats of Get Down Tonight, only to be left to the dogs when rock came along. As Secret Disco Revolution often reminds us, the kings and queens of the era rarely saw the political statement they were making, and it seems with the Village People, their fans didn't either. But change was happening all the same, and you can't help but respect disco's masterminds – whoever they were – for coming up with such a clever plan. === Credits: === A Cave 7 production for Telefilm Canada and the Rogers Group of Funds. Made through the Theatrical Documentary Program and in Association with Bell Media. ===
