Listen to three playlists inspired by our London Short Film Festival picks
Film critic Cici Peng, LSFF co-director Philip Ilson and International Space Orchestra founder Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian put together playlists to soundtrack the festival’s most talked about programmes.
London Short Film Festival returned this January with an expansive offering that featured over 50 programmes and events, including screenings of 400+ short films across the city. “LSFF has always been about giving space to new, unconventional voices in filmmaking, and giving a platform to new curators to help us shape each festival edition,” LSFF co-directors Charlotte Ashcroft and Philip Ilson said. “As London’s independent cinemas face closures, the need for these “third spaces” – where community, creativity, and collective experience thrive – has never been more critical.”
Many of this year’s most impactful films were shown as part of programmes curated by theme, telling a variety of layered, interlinked stories that centred conversation, collaboration and the sense of community LSFF is proud to foster. Here, Ilson, Cici Peng and Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian compile the music that soundtracked our favourites.
Pop: Contagion, Infection, Revolution
The programme: A whirlwind exploration of pop music as a shapeshifting force – able to ignite, unify, or distract – that has influenced political movements and counter-cultures throughout history.
The playlist: Film critic Cici Peng selects unapologetic pop songs that have soundtracked culturally historic moments or movements.
Xin Yu (心雨)
“A classical Chinese pop ballad-duet, commonly sung at small, dingy karaoke bars, or streamed on wavering boxy TVs in the 1990s. The song captures such a specific moment in Chinese history in the 1990s, as the promises of capitalism in the post-reform era seem to offer little for the marginal small-town characters who seem to remain stuck in another time, only singing along to the nostalgic pop song of a generation.”
I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany
“A lyric-less rendition of Tiffany’s pop song haunts Aria Dean’s film-installation Abattoir, U.S.A! (2023), depicting an empty 3D-rendered slaughterhouse. Dean turns her ghostly, disembowelled, disembodied roving camera to the architecture of death. Yet, there is no animal, or flesh in sight. Only the unflinching, glittering movements of the machinery of the slaughterhouse matched by the smooth, machine-like gliding of the camera. Everyday violence has become integral to the machinations of the modern world, Dean seems to say, as she further punctuates the dissonance with the alternate rendition of Tiffany’s romance-song. A song without lyrics, that we all know; a slaughterhouse without cows, that we can all imagine.”
California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & The Papas
“California Dreamin’ is a particularly important song that plays across two films in Taiwan and Hong Kong – the first is of course the cult film Chungking Express that signals to the romantic, twinkly-eyed dreaming of escape from our loveable slacker played by the iconic Faye Wong. In the lesser known of the two films, The Mountain by Richard Yao-chi Chen is a particularly important historic film made in 1966 in Taiwan, during a period of political repression, martial law, and Taiwan’s harsh isolationist policies. The track California Dreamin’ is a provocative retort to the isolationism of the era with a radical desire to imagine other places.”
暗闇でDANCE by Barbee Boys
“暗闇でDANCE is the opening tune to the astounding opening sequence of Japanese filmmaker Shinji Somai’s Typhoon Club (1985). What appears is not all it seems – a slippery jewel of a film that floats between comedy and horror, between glee and disillusionment, between childhood and death. The elation of the opening dance sequence is paralleled by the dark perversity of a final dance towards the end of the film that seems to signal towards the very end of the future, and the end of youth, as the world goes mad. Yet, the music goes on and on.”
Ragga to Rocklands: The Sounds of Deptford and New Cross
The programme: A mix of drama, documentary and music videos delving into the rich musical heritage of Deptford and New Cross.
The playlist: A short history of influential artists and sounds that originated in the area, compiled by London Short Film Festival co-director Philip Ilson.
Watcha Waitin’ For? by Blade
“British hip-hop was still in its infancy when New Cross’s Blade emerged on his own 691 label, ahead of the curve of the UK garage and grime scenes that he helped pave the way for.”
Compulsion by Test Dept
“Groundbreaking artists from Deptford at the forefront of pure industrial music, emerging from a radical anarchistic scene around the early 1980s in South East London.”
White Riot by The Clash
“A cry from the working classes that lead to the formation of Rock Against Racism following the New Cross and Lewisham riots of the late 1970s.”
So Here We Are by Bloc Party
“At the forefront of the mid 2000s indie sleaze scene, which the Paradise Bar in New Cross was part of.”
There’s No Other Way by Blur
“The band was founded at Goldsmiths College in New Cross in the early 90s as part of the UK baggy indie-dance scene, before Britpop emerged a few years later.”
Alien Extravaganza
The programme: A collaboration between LSFF, Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian and FRAMELINE San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival that imagines a queer, colourful, experimental galaxy of new filmmaking.
The playlist: Artist, filmmaker and director of the International Space Orchestra Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian chooses tracks inspired by the themes of the programme: alien aesthetics, cosmic glamour, gender fluid and pluralistic futures, extraterrestrial matters and SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research.
Wherever You Go by The Avalanches
“The full album is fab. I collaborated with The Avalanches before – they are marvels of humans. We worked on a track with them with the international space orchestra at NASA during lockdown.”
BIOME(TRICS) by Mirrored Fatality
“Intergalactic post-cosmic artists! Former University of the Underground graduates! Mirrored Fatality is what the world and the cosmos needs. Their music heals and takes you to another universe.”
Vanilla by Anman
“Georgian artist and multidisciplinary creator Anman Annamaria is making new worlds happen. Super inspirational on so many levels and totally unique.”
Gizmo’s New Song from the Gremlins Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
“A classic.”
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