We meet filmmakers Mick Gochanour and Robin Klein, who have made a career out of restoring Rolling Stones movies, on Chicago Tonight at 7:00 pm. Gochanour and Klein are just two of the many filmmakers descending on Chicago this weekend for the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival (CIMMfest No. 5), the city's annual festival of film screenings, music concerts and more. This year, the festival presents CIMMpathy for The Stones, a major retrospective celebrating The Rolling Stones’ 50 years of music on film. The retrospective includes screenings of 10 concert films and documentaries -- two never before seen in Chicago -- and takes place all weekend long at the Music Box Theatre.
Watch footage from The Rolling Stones Charlie is my Darling – Ireland 1965, the Stones first professionally filmed concert:
Courtesy of ABKCO Films
Below is the full lineup of CIMMpathy for the Stones film screenings. For the full CIMMfest lineup, click here.
CIMMpathy for the Stones Film Schedule
FRIDAY, APRIL 19
6:00PM
Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981
Chicago blues played a seminal role on the Stones early sound (so much so that they recorded at Chess Studios in 1964). On November 22, 1981, during their US tour, The Stones visited Chicago's South Side to catch Muddy Waters performing at the legendary Checkerboard Lounge. Before long, Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Ian Stewart joined Muddy on stage, as did Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and Lefty Dizz.
8:00PM
The Rolling Stones Charlie Is My Darling - Ireland, 1965 (dirs. Mick Gochanour, Peter Whitehead)
Newly discovered, never-before-seen-footage has been woven into an intimate, behind-the-scenes diary of early life on the road with The Stones. Shot just weeks after "Satisfaction" hit #1 on the charts, it features their first professionally filmed concert. Charlie is my Darling-Ireland 1965 captures the band before they became legend.
+ Q&A with director Mick Gochanour and producer Robin Klein
9:45PM
Stones in Exile (dir. Stephen Kijak)
In the spring of 1971, The Rolling Stones reluctantly departed the UK to take up residence in France. Keith Richards settled in a villa, and this became the venue for the recording of much of the band's masterpiece Exile on Main Street. Stones in Exile tells the story in the band's own words and through extensive archive footage of their time away from England and the creation of this extraordinary double album, which many regard as the Rolling Stones' finest achievement.
with:The Rolling Stones music Videos: “Jumpin Jack Flash” (make up version); “Child Of The Moon”; “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby”; “We Love You”; “2000 Light Years From Home”
SATURDAY, APRIL 20
2:00PM
Some Girls - Live In Texas '78 (dir. Lynn Lenau Calmes)
Shot on 16mm during The Rolling Stones' 1978 US Tour, after the release of Some Girls, this tour film documents what many consider one of the very best Stones shows at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 18th, 1978. This is undeniably The Rolling Stones at the peak of their form.
4:30PM
Rolling Like a Stone (dirs. Stefan Berg, Magnus Gertten) Chicago Premiere
The starting point for this film is an 8mm amateur home movie shot in 1965, where Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones attend an after-concert party with local musicians and pop fans. For some the party never ends. Immortalized by this forgotten home movie, the party-goers try - 40 years later - to make sense of these memories, and the eternal question of "What could have been?"
6:15PM
Sympathy for the Devil (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
Jean-Luc Godard captures The Rolling Stones in the mist of producing their soon-to- become anthemic "Sympathy for the Devil," in London's Olympic recording studio. Beginning as a ballad, the track gradually acquires a pulsating groove. Juxtaposed against themes of revolution and democracy, the film is a brilliant portrait of the creative process at its most collaborative and arousing.
8:15PM
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg)
Long considered the lost holy grail of rock films, this two-day event features circus fire-eaters, acrobats and clowns alongside extraordinary live performances by The Who, Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, The Dirty Mac Band (John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell), Yoko Ono and The Rolling Stones. As David Dalton so aptly put it, "For a brief moment, it seemed that rock 'n' roll would inherit the earth."
+ Q&A with filmmakers Mick Gochanour and Robin Klein
SUNDAY, APRIL 21
2:00PM
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (dir. Rollin Binzer)
The legendary Rolling Stones concert film shot over four nights in Texas during the Exile on Main Street tour in 1972. This is one of the finest Rolling Stones concerts ever captured on film.
4:00PM
I Got the Blues in Austin (dir. Richard Jernigan) Chicago Premiere
As The Rolling Stones prepare to play Austin, Chris Jagger, broadcaster and brother of the legendary Mick, joins local radio host John Peyton and visits Austin's legendary surviving blues artists, including: the late Pinetop Perkins, Lavelle White, Jimmie Ray Vaughan and Hubert Sumlin. The film culminates with a heartwarming jam session between Pinetop Perkins and The Rolling Sessions backstage. I Got the Blues in Austin allows audiences to spend intimate moments with the last of a blues generation in Austin like no other.
+ Q&A with director Richard Jernigan and featured blues singer Lavelle White
with:
Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! (dirs. Albert Maysles, Bradley Kaplan, Ian Marciewicz)
A spellbinding film diary of five songs performed at Madison Square Garden during The Rolling Stones' 1969 U.S. tour, a photo shoot featuring Mick, Charlie and a donkey, a mixing session at Olympic Studios, backstage tête-à-têtes between Keith, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Taylor, and a heliport summit meeting before Altamont.
+ Q&A with producers Mick Gochanour and Robin Klein
