Le Guess Who? is once again presenting a specially curated film program as part of its 2025 festival edition with a selection of films that are directly or loosely tied to the music program and artists performing at the festival, as well as the premiere of the different COSMOS Embassy Films.
Presented as part of the film program are Bixa Travesty, a feature-length documentary picturing the Brazilian transsexual singer Linn da Quebrada who also performs at Le Guess Who? 2025; I Snuck Off the Slave Ship, the short film accompaniment to Lonnie Holley’s song of the same name and an assemblage of Lonnie’s encounters with the slave ship "America"; and Sonido Amazonico ("Amazonian Sound"), a fascinating journey through the history of the Sánchez Casanova brothers, known as "Los fabulosos Wembler’s de Iquitos" (The Fabulous Wemblers of Iquitos), also performing at Le Guess Who? 2025.
The film Samsara is described as a “cine-concert” that draws from German black-and-white films from the 1920s as well as wayang kulit (traditional Indonesian shadow puppetry). Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to the Afrofuturist film Neptune Frost, a sci-fi punk musical co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman that takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective.
COSMOS Embassy Films
COSMOS presents several Embassy Films, created in collaboration with partners all over the world, who highlight their respective local, independent music scenes. IDGK is an Istanbul-based music initiative documenting the Istanbul's diverse alternative music scene. In their own words: "This film is about the music scene as we’re living it, through conversations and all those little moments we are lucky to witness. It’s both a portrait of the people who keep the scene alive and a document of our own steps toward belonging here."
ALIGN.ONLINE is a Southeast Asian platform dedicated to cultural and sound innovation, with a focus on supporting women and the queer community in electronic music. Their film follows founders Victoria Yam (aka rEmPiT g0dDe$$) and Lynn Nandar Htoo into the heart of the Malaysian island Penang, where ALIGN.ONLINE hosts an underground rave with acts from across Southeast Asia. We’re witnessing the whole night of the event, going back and forth between the party and the social interactions in the smoking area. We’re granted a glimpse into this small but vibrant scene, which has formed against the backdrop of a politically conservative country, creating a truly safe space for the queer community.
River Down Records is a label from Panamá City, dedicated to documenting and developing the creative sound of Panamá. In their film, trumpeter and River-Down-founder Aquiles Navarro (Irreversible Entanglements) and his labelmates, as well as well as wide array of artists from Panamá take us on a trip from the bustling live-music scene of its capital to the many traditional styles invented in it the rural parts of the country.
Seydisfjordur Community Radio is a shared digital and analogue broadcasting platform located in the village of Seyðisfjörður on the east-coast of Iceland - hosted, nurtured and initiated by an open-ended international community. Their Embassy Film was created in collaboration with Seyðisfjörður-based filmmaker Austin Thomasson, and is best described as a sonic cosmos lost in visual haze. The raw imagery is edited together with performative and immersive elements into a montage that serves as a humble cartography of this magical artist refuge – and the void it resists within.
Le Guess Who? 2025 film screenings take place on Friday 7 & Saturday 8 November at Slachtstraat Filmtheater.
