Back in January we marveled over the latest music video from Gem Club, a brilliantly crafted clip from the Somerville chamber-pop trio for their track "Speech Of Foxes". In the Ben Phillippo-directed video, an elderly man is out in the woods on a cold winter evening or early morning, placing old photos from his past into a fire. As the images start to burn, so does he, until he is completely engrossed in flames -- and viewing himself from the outside. We called it one of the more emotional and visually engaging videos we've seen in a long while, and all that was missing was the ability to view the cinematic scenes up on a big screen.
Next weekend, the Boston Underground Film Festival will provide that opportunity during their Sound & Vision showcase, where Gem Club's "Speech of Foxes" is one of 22 videos to be featured at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge. The March 26 showing is at 2 p.m., and tickets are $12.
Shannen Ortale, a member of the Boston Underground Film Festival programming team, says showcasing the videos is a way to give the big-screen treatment to an art that's been relegated mostly to laptops, iPhones, and other smaller computer-based screens. And she makes a point to include a few locals each year, as well.
"Gone are the halcyon days of MTV and MuchMusic, a time when we could binge hours and hours of curated music videos to our heart’s content," Ortale says in a press release. "Although music videos have found new life on YouTube and Vimeo, we feel they deserve the cinematic treatment, which is why we’ve devoted an entire showcase in their honor. Here we’ve pulled together 22 surreal, beautiful examples that prove just how vital and exciting this medium can be."
In addition to Gem Club's entry, Sound & Vision will also features videos from former Boston College student Skylar Spence (“I Can’t Be Your Superman”), as well as clips from Childish Gambino (“Sober”), Stromae (“Quand C’est”), Tame Impala (“The Less I Know The Better”), Dan Deacon (“When I Was Done Dying”), Alagoas ("Ghosts"), and others.
Check out some of our favorites below, and click here for the entire Boston Underground Film Festival lineup, which includes a March 24 screening of John Niven's Britpop-era murder-thriller Kill Your Friends and a March 27 premiere of Blood of the Tribades, a lesbian vampire feature from Somerville's soon-to-be-Los-Angeles-based filmmakers Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola.