A double feature! Starting the night with Erik Sutch’s new film Building of an Identity: Rebuild, followed by a brief Q&A with the director, and closing with a screening of Prince’s concert film Sign ☮️ the Times.

Building of an Identity: Rebuild / Sign ☮️ the Times
Dir: Erik Sutch / Prince
Runtime: 33 min. / 85 min.
Release Year: 2022 / 1987
Language: English
Starring: many animals and electronics / Prince, Sheila E., Cat Glover, Dr. Fink, Boni Boyer

Building of an Identity: Rebuild is a musical documentary about how personalities are formed by nature, pop culture, transportation, and close relationships. Consisting of eleven segments depicting what people need from life and what they add to it, the film puts an emphasis on sound and quiet just as much as it does on light and shadow.

Featuring an original soundtrack by Erik Sutch and Lila Tublin, the movie was shot on digital video, film, and videotape over the last ten or so years in Australia, Chile, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Romania, the US, and Vietnam. It commemorates a decade of having a video camera in your pocket at all times ready to capture whatever is worth taking the camera out of your pocket for.

Punctuated with specially-filmed, comedic vignettes, Prince and his band bring his album Sign ☮️ the Times to life in one of the greatest concert films ever made, capturing Prince at the peak of his musical powers.

Sign ☮️ the Times is always the best experience in movie theaters. I saw it most recently at the New Beverly in LA as I was wrapping up the edit on Building of an Identity. It’s just so fun, a perfectly documented musical performance by the absolute best pop star there ever was. Shot almost entirely on location at Paisley Park, it feels like he’s playing a packed to the gills stadium when it’s really a soundstage just across the way from his bedroom.