ROME -- Miss Sharon Jones, Nick La Rocca, David Bowie, Philip Glass, Al Pacino, The Libertines, Prodigy, Royksopp, Mumford & Sons, Nas, Miriam Makeba, Al Pacino/Danny Collins… just a few names to sum up the second edition of Turin's SYS 2016.

 Music andimages, tied in the indissoluble bond of the cinema and auteur video, meet in Turin from Feb. 25-28 2016 at Cinema Massimo, for the second edition of the SeeYouSound International Music Film Festival.

 The "festival that wasn't there", born from an idea of the Choobamba association in 2015, is the first in Italy dedicated entirely to the cinema with a musical theme. The success of the first edition was confirmation of the attention and love that exists, in Italy and in the world, for the wide universe of movies, feature films, documentaries, reportage and video-clips which have made music the linguist medium and medium of thought.

 The second edition of the festival offers an international exhibition of movies and is called 'Music is the weapon.'It is dedicated, in these hard times, to the power of music as a mass gathering weapon and to the power of cinema against social indifference.

 What sometimes fails in spoken and written language is successful in music and cinema, the perfect marriage that has an unprecedented capacity: thanks to their deep emotional component, these films fascinate, stimulate, inspire and raise awareness, they tell stories that denounce injustice, treat their wounds, building bridges towards hope.

 Six films for a global journey, from Cuba to the United States, Cambodia to Mali, travelling through the unknown Greenland, through many differents sounds and experiences, but with a unique and common spirit, personified in the words of Fela Kuti that title this exhibition: "music is the weapon able to move the conscience and change reality." The film 'Don’t think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll' (2014) is dedicated to the music that stood up against the brutal Khmer Rouge regime but that was revived in the end.

 There is also music from devious and fraticidal war scenery in 'They Will Have to Kill Us First', a film about musicians' resistance in Mali, who fight against the music ban enforced by the hardline Islamists. 'Sumé – The Sound of a Revolution' tells the story of the first Greenlandic rock band who, in 1973, decided to sing in their native language, giving voice to the frustration of an entire community and starting a revolution that would see the indigenous Greenlandic people demanding autonomy from Danish colonial rule.

 The documentary filmmaker Mika Kaurismäki, brother of the famous Aki, makes a tribute in 'Mama Africa' to the disenchanted and almost ferocious fighter figure of Miriam Makeba, Mama Africa who fought, like few other, for civil rights, combining the commitment with her diva status.

 The journey continues towards Cuba with 'Viva Cuba Libre: Rap is War', a documentary that tells the story of the brother Cruz, beaten and arrested for listening to some underground rap which denounces, with urgent lyrics, the economic and political catastrophic status of the country.

 Finally, from executive producer and rapper Nasir “Nas” Jones,  'Shake the Dust' chronicles the influence of breakdancingand hip-hop culture, exploring how it strikes a resonant chord in the slums, favelas and ghettos of the world and far beyond.

 Next to the titles proposed by 'Music is the weapon', the second edition of the festival will also feature the films in competition divided into three categories: feature films (Long Play), short films (7-inch), and music video (Soundies). The works have been selected from 374 altogether coming from every continent, from New Zealand to Norway, as well as from any political situation and beyond censorship from Iran, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and Lebanon: all have in common the ability to use the language of cinema, merging it with music.

 The sectionof the eight feature films in the International Competition Long Play winds through a more contemporary leitmotif than ever: the survival and the consequent determination of your own destiny through music.

 In 'Monsterimies', a documentary about the Finnish heavy metal band Lordi, is the preservation of a world inhabited by monsters; it is the fight against illness using the soul-R’n'B in Miss Sharon Jones’s 'Barbara Kopple'; it is the strong will of not surrendering to the inevitable decline as told by 'Blood, Sweat and Tears', a moving biopic about the famous folk-Dutch star André Hase; it is obstinacy for affirmation in Nick La Rocca’s documentary 'Sicily Jass', who with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was the first in the world to record a jazz record.

 Moreconceptually this topic is present in the fight against the dissolution of its own image in 'Low' (world prémière), an experimental film debut by Renaud Cojo, phantasmagoric celebration of David Bowie in a Philip Glass mood.

 The themeof the competition becomes even more poignant when it determines the fate of a band in exile and forced to stay on tour for 15 years to escape the dictatorship of Pinochet, as in Jorge Leiva's documentary 'Quilapayún', beyond the song, or takes a sacrificial tone when encountering the other postpones its recognition as in 'For this is my body', where a gloomy Carl Barat from the Libertines sentimentally vampirizes a groupie to get rid of its spleen.

 The most radical vision is the one that paves the way to survival once and for all, because it subverts everything with the anarchic and naïve scream of Japanese noise, as in the post-atomic and visionary 2045 Carnival Folklore Naoki Kato.

 Even more than last year, the international short film section of the festival is sure to be varied and articulated, able to show to the public through the 18 titles of its selection a very wide spectrum of genres (both musical and cinematographic) and thus holding true to its name, 7-inch, that recalls the 45 rpm records that filled the old juke box, magic boxes where everyone could find at least one title that pleased them.

 In fact among documentaries, fictions, animations and experiments coming from Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Switzerland and USA there are different opportunities to have fun and to reflect, to discover new sounds and new stories, to dream and to be intrigued.

 The Italian-American film 'Carmen', for example, deals in a very unexpected way, with disability telling the story of a group of hopeful actresses that decide to participate to the audition for the lead role in the iconic work of Carmen; the Italian director Andrea Cerovac, in the documentary CJ tells the story of the soul / jazz singer who every day performs in front of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York while day by day everything passes in front of him, without even noticing his amazing voice.

 'Paax Mayan Poetry' is a Mexican documentary about a hip-hop band that wants to sing in the Mayan language.

 Protagonistsof this section (from Piedmont) are Francesco Caudullo, aka Madaski, who in 'About Madaski' tracks down the most poignant moments of his career, and a group of young musicians gathered in Val Bormida to practise the tunes of Don Giovanni, placing music in a wild, natural context of extraordinary charm. We’re talking about'Arie nella valle - prove del Don Giovanni in Valle Bormida'.

 The section Soundies is the big surprise of the edition 2016. A hard work done by spreading the invitation worldwide has highlighted the desire of directors to deal with juries and publishers. The Internet has changed the way of enjoying the music video: it was liberalized.  

 On one side is that one great and democratic thing of the Web; on the other side the directors have lost the concept of selection and subsequent approval by experts . Clicks on the media player are not only related to the video, but often to the band’s name and to their own marketing.

 SeeYouSoundis back to the ancient and precious mix: music and images combined together to create emotions. Music and images are in fact what the jury will judge and what the audience will appreciate more. An international selection in which you will see truly unique music video, from Royksopp to Mumford & Sons to the Prodigy.

 With fourspecial appointments SeeYouSound's second edition will bring you through a dense exotic journey of memories and allusions that will lead you into territories forgotten or never explored before.

 The opening night, Thursday Feb. 25, Theatre One at Cinema Massimo will be assigned to the film 'B-Movie: Lust & Sound di Berlino Ovest 1979-1989' which arrives exclusively for SeeYouSound a few weeks before the debut in the Italian theaters, after the great success throughout Europe: a Berlin told by Mark Reeder where the musical history of a constantly evolving city still influences new generations of rebels.

 The secondappointment is with 'The Jazz Singer', Alan Crosland's legendary film which marks the birth of the era of sound films. Rediscovering this forgotten 1927 masterpiece is a necessary deed for a festival that wants to tell the inherent allusions between cinema and music.

 The second great Italian prémière of SeeYouSound is a movie that sees as protagonist one of the most charismatic actors in the history of contemporary cinema, Al Pacino with 'DannyCollins', the film written and directed by Don Fogelman, screenwriter of 'Last Vegas' and 'Crazy Stupid Love' here on his debut behind the camera: the story of an old rocker who, after receiving a letter from John Lennon with four decades of delay, decides to rethink his life. Al Pacino promises one of his best performances in a long time. An amazing event for SeeYouSound!

 The Red Night of the music video is back again, in collaboration with MTV Music: an exciting new selection of the best music videos of the last 25 years. On Saturday night from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. you will enjoy them in the Cinema Massimo theatres to appreciate pictures and sounds in a way impossible to experience on TV or on the computer. A night not to be missed for lovers of the shorter form of movie which is directly connected to music.

 Three moments of in-depth talks dedicated to technology, to music and to movies: Friday at 12 a.m. at Amantes, home of the festival, there will be a panel Soundtracks in movies and on TV. Speakers: Franco Godi, Paul Spaccamonti, Roberto Casalino and Max Casacci.

 On Sunday Feb. 28 at3 p.m., at Amantes, the second panel of SeeYouSound Festival will take place: The Immersive Cinema. In collaboration with the National Museum of Cinema, the Film Commission Torino Piemonte, InVRsion and HiveDivision we will deepen the concept of virtual reality which are the opportunities for its development and use in the film and in the entertainment industry. Starting from XYX some virtual reality stations with SAMSUNG GEAR VR, will be set up for the National Museum of Cinema’s audience, to make an immersive experience in the world of musical film.

 SeeYouSound 2016 is realized in collaboration with the National Cinema Museum and benefits the media partnership with Rolling Stone Italy: the magazine has been born with a strong DNA and a deep passion for the world of cinema and the collaboration with the second edition of  the International Music Film Festival in Turin will allow a very intense sharing of several contents, also considering that SeeYouSound is entirely dedicated to the musical theme screening. Among the various prizes designated, the Rolling Stone Original Soundtrack Award has been created, which will be given to the best soundtrack of the films in competition.

 SeeYouSound is on the Internet: www.seeyousound.org

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