gimme a beat with babymonster – Details, episodes & analysis

2024 was an even more successful year for Zurich Film Festival than its organizers expected.

It was an important year as the Zurich Film Festival festival celebrated its 20th year. The dates moved to the beginning of October, but that didn't stop the visitors. This year the festival attracted 140’000 visitors (even more than the previous year). A total of 107 films were shown, including 17 world premieres, 8 international premieres, and 11 European premieres – every 3rd film is a world, international, or European premiere.

First held in 2005, Zurich Film Festival established itself very quickly on the national and international film festival scene. The formula for its success it's probably a mix of an attractive location: an international but small city of Zurich; a great selection of movies and different programs/events like ZFF Masters, ZFF for Kids, and a few others. I loved that this year most of the movies were shown in the cinemas I prefer: Frame, Corso, and Arthouse. I love these cinemas for their quality and awesome location (close to my house 😎).

Looking at all these years I have been visiting or reviewing (since 2017) Zurich Film Festival. The way I like to explain its success is to quote/paraphrase the sentence I found in the industry booklet a few years ago. Basically, the organizers agree on a few basics for a successful film festival: "Content is king, Collaboration is key and Encounters among creative folks are essential". I am glad to confirm that even after many years, the organizers are still taking "these basics" seriously while developing the festival further and, most importantly, in the right direction.

This is why I keep coming back and reviewing Zurich Film Festival.

From the perspective of Gimme A Beat, exploring *the female factor* of the festival is easy. Zurich Film Festival always provides a significant number of female stories and movies from female directors, and a good balance of different genres, aspiring filmmakers, and (potential) blockbusters.

As listeners of Gimme A Beat (and my family and friends) already know, having a busy schedule is business as usual for me, and with so many great movies, definitely a pleasure. For me, Zurich Film Festival is all about watching movies. My most enjoyable moment is sitting in the dark cinema, fully immersed in the storyline. This year, even if many fabulous events were happening on the festival grounds, I haven't attended/seen any of them.

Most importantly, I have seen almost 35 movies and managed to get together with 5 female filmmakers and 2 lead actresses.

With so much more material I decided to dedicate several whole Gimme A Beats to Zurich Film Festival, the one happening tonight and a few others later on. In most cases, I will adapt my radio show to the Swiss screenings of movies, to make sure that these movies receive the attention they deserve.

Considering the number of movies I've seen (almost 35), I will not be reviewing all the movies and posting them on the Gimme A Beat page. But, I will continue posting the reviews after tonight's show until the end of the year since most of the movies from the festival are coming to the cinemas next year. This year again I will be focusing on my highlights only. To find them you should follow the search with the following hashtags: #zff #zff2024 #highlight #gimmeabeat.

In tonight's Gimme A Beat, I will be focusing on the following movies:

- Black Box Diaries, the documentary directed by Shiori Ito, who I had a chance to interview. Swiss official release on October 31st.

- Es Gehts um Luis / About Luis, directed and written by Lucia Chiarla, with Natalia Rudziewicz as a lead actress. I had a chance to interview both of them. Swiss official release is not known yet, but I will keep you posted.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tune in to Gimme A Beat (21.10.2024) tonight to hear my impressions of the Zurich Film Festival, the reviews of the movies in the focus, and interviews with Shiori, Lucia, and Natalia combined with music selected by Lucia and Natalia and music from Freya Arde, who wrote the music for another one of my highlights, Riefenstahl. While that soundtrack is not out yet, this was another opportunity for me to celebrate female talent.

Tune in for...

Black Box Diaries and About Luis at Zurich Film Festival 2024  

with click-to-play or playlist (for the songs played in the show) from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora featuring: gimme a beat's movies reviews at ZFF 2024

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

It's 2024, and I am back again with a bunch of my favourite NPR Tiny Desk concerts.

NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concerts were always one of my favourite things to listen to, but with the pandemic, my interest turned into an obsession. In 2020, I did two shows dedicated to them: Obsessed with Tiny Desk 2020 Part I and Part II, in 2021 I did one more, in 2022 another one and last year one as well.

So what is it about NPR Tiny Desk Concert series that I love?

It is very simple, this series brings an intimate concert vibe through approx 20-minute video performances, recorded either live at the desk of All Songs Considered host and producer Bob Boilen or, during the pandemic, at someplace that feels like an artist's home. The latter unsurprisingly called Tiny Desk (home) concerts. Bob Boilen retired in the meantime, but he created music history with NPR Tiny Desk Concerts and his legacy continues.

During the pandemic, we couldn't attend gigs or music festivals, so, for me, NPR Tiny Desk Concerts were the closest thing I had to live gigs. Even today, this is still my favourite place when I need to do something at work that requires deep concentration. Also, when I am craving a live and more intimate experience.

Let's be honest, how often are you able to see your favourite (or newly discovered favourite) artist performing in a small, intimate venue? Unfortunately, not that frequently.

And this is why my yearly Obsessed with Tiny Desk is here to stay. Minimum once per year and sometimes even more than that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tune in tonight to Gimme A Beat (16.09.2024) to hear my selection of NPR Tiny Desk Concerts sung by female artists. For NPR, you can donate here.

Obsessed with Tiny Desk 2024  from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio LoRa featuring: npr tiny desk selection on youtube

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

Primavera Sound (commonly referred to as simply Primavera) is an annual music festival held in Parc del Fòrum, a park situated directly at the Mediterranean seafront in Barcelona, Spain. The festival takes place between the end of May and the beginning of June, every year since 2001. In addition to the best-known edition in Barcelona, Primavera Sound expanded to other locations as well: since 2012, there is a Primavera Sound Porto Edition; in 2022, the festival hosted its first editions in Los Angeles, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires and São Paulo. In 2023, for the first time, there was an edition in Madrid with nearly the same line-up.

This year Primavera Sound in Barcelona brought together 193,000 festival goers during the three main days in a Parc del Fòrum. Compared to the previous years, there were some changes in the layout of stages and the variations in bars and rest areas; This has led to an even more pleasurable experience. Of course, the best part of it is its exciting program.

I've been following Primavera Sound for a while now, for several reasons. Not only that Primavera always had an impressive line-up and it is happening in Barcelona, one of my favourite European towns, but this festival has been a leader in the gender-balanced line-up, not just in Europe but worldwide.

And this, by default, makes Primavera Sound a perfect festival for Gimme A Beat.

It is a bit embarrassing that I waited 21 years to attend Primavera, but the dates just never worked for me. Attending Coachella and then road-tripping for a few weeks after created no space for me to go to another festival immediately after my return to Europe. But, with my interest in Coachella not being in focus anymore, I decided (already last year) that in 2023 I will be attending Primavera Sound in Barcelona.

Fast forward to the end of May, I packed my festival gear (dancing shoes and my voice recorded) and headed to Barcelona. I was already prepared to be blown away by all the artists I was going to see and I was hoping that everything else would follow.

And this is exactly what happened.

Everything worked perfectly: superb organisation, collaborative weather: sunny but not too warm with a continuous sea breeze; great food, easy-to-move-around festival layout and perfect location. All of this, combined with friendly and energetic festival-goers, local and international crowds excited to be there, created a unique, unforgettable atmosphere.

And, of course, being in Barcelona ensures good vibes before and after the festival. 

With an impressive, carefully curated line-up, exploring the *female factor* of Primavera Sound with my Gimme A Beat lenses (or better said sunglasses) was easy. Even before I arrived, I discovered so many, for me, new artists just by studying the program. And I knew that I would see some of my favourite ones that will move me to the core.

The clue that I was in for a great experience was already on the pre-day of the festival, the day I didn't even plan to attend, which magically opened for me in all its Pet Shop Boys glory. 

Finally, when I got to the official festival, the time seemed to fly by. I would arrive early at the festival ground and leave in the wee morning hours with feet and back pain from all the dancing, standing and exploring. Still, then tomorrow, as I was recollecting memories and writing a review of the day before, I couldn't wait to go back and do it again.

I've seen so many great gigs that it was hard to keep this on only a few posts, but here they are for day 1, day 2 and day 3, with the depeche mode awesomeness on day 2, which deserved a separate post. You can also see my reviews via Gimme a Beat Facebook search.

In tonight's show, I will focus on two über talented female artists: Dagger Moth, the one-woman band from Italy and Last Apollo, an up-and-coming artist from Dublin. Both of them are great performers and were kind enough to get together with me for short interviews. Interestingly, even though they are in different stages of their careers, both artists choose solo/independent paths to avoid compromising their art and creativity. 

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Tune in to Gimme A Beat tonight (19.06.2023) to hear the review of Primavera Sound Barcelona 2023, interviews with Dagger Moth and Last Apollo, combined with the music from their latest releases and selected songs from other female artists who performed at the festival.

Tune in for…

Dagger Moth and Last Apollo at Primavera Sound Barcelona 2023  

from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora

with click-to-play or playlist (for the songs played in the show)

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concerts were always one of my favourite things to listen to, but with the pandemic, my interest turned into an obsession. In 2020, I did two shows dedicated to them: Obsessed with Tiny Desk 2020 Part I and Part II, in 2021 I did one more and in 2022 another one. 

So what is it about NPR Tiny Desk Concert series that I love?

It is very simple, this series brings an intimate concert vibe through approx 20-minute video performances, recorded either live at the desk of All Songs Considered host and producer Bob Boilen or, during the pandemic, at some place that feels like an artist's home. The latter unsurprisingly called Tiny Desk (home) concerts.

During the pandemic, we couldn't attend gigs or music festivals, so, for me, NPR Tiny Desk Concerts were the closest thing I had to live gigs. Even today, this is still my favourite place when I need to do something at work that requires deep concentration. Also, when I am craving a live and more intimate experience.

Let's be honest, how often are you able to see your favourite (or newly discovered favourite) artist performing in a small, intimate venue? Unfortunately, not that frequently.

And this is why my yearly Obsessed with Tiny Desk is here to stay. Minimum once per year and sometimes even more than that.

It's 2023, and I am back again with a bunch of my favourite NPR Tiny Desk concerts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tune in tonight to Gimme A Beat (17.04.2023) to hear my selection of NPR Tiny Desk Concerts sung by female artists. For NPR, you can donate here.

Obsessed with Tiny Desk 2023  from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio LoRa featuring: npr tiny desk selection on youtube

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

I discovered Arooj Aftab, like many others, through her Mohabbat song. After hearing this song, I listened to her's Vulture Prince album and fell in love with it. Then I heard her NPR tiny desk session and loved it so much (I was literally obsessed with it) that I included it in my (latest) *Obsessed with Tiny Desk 2022* Gimme a Beat. 

From that moment on, I wanted to see her live and feature her in Gimme A Beat. Around that time (early 2022), I reached out to her management and asked for an interview, but I never heard back.

Until August 2022, when Arooj's tour brought her to Switzerland and I got a chance to attend her concert and interview her. 

I just returned from the Flow Festival, so I was tired from the travel and experience. Also still a bit overwhelmed by all the great gigs I saw and interviews I did. But I knew that I was in for something special, so there was no way that I would miss this.

Arooj's concert was part of the Winterthurer Musikfestwochen, but it was happening in a totally different setup than the rest of the festival: the city church of Winterthur. She performed in a minimalistic setup, only with Gyan Riley on the guitar and Petros Klampanis on the double bass. They played on the church stage, under the church arches, in the dark, only with dimmed neon lights. The audience was engaged, focused, involved: quiet during the performance, cheering and clapping during the breaks. Combined with mesmerizing Arooj's voice, this created a beautiful, emotional experience. 

I was blown away by this experience and, more than anything, happy that I made an effort to be there. Follow the link for the Instagram post with my impressions and snippets of the performance.

After, I had a chance to get together with Arooj for a short interview. Even though she was tired (after all, this was her 18th city in a row), she was friendly and open to talking about the performance, her music, her favourite award and future plans.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tune in to Gimme A Beat (20.02.2023) tonight to find out more: I will be sharing my impressions of Arooj Aftab's performance, an interview with her and my selections of her music.

Tune in for...

Arooj Aftab in Winterthur  

with click-to-play or playlist (for the songs played in the show) from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

Yaaay, it's Xmas time again!

Xmas time is definitely one of my favourite times of the year, when people get more friendly and pleasant and everywhere you go it smells like gluehwein and Xmas cookies.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tune in to Gimme A Beat (19.12.2022) tonight for Xmas session, an eclectic playlist of Xmas songs sung by female artists.

Tune in for...

Eclectic Xmas  

with click-to-play or playlist from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

First held in 2005, Zurich Film Festival established itself very quickly on the national and international film festival scene. The formula for its success it's probably a mix of an attractive location: an international but small city of Zurich; a great selection of movies and different programs/events like ZFF Masters, ZFF Talks, Film Music Competition, ZFF for Kids and a few others.

The best way to explain Zurich Film Festival's success is to quote/paraphrase the sentence I found in the industry booklet a few years ago. Basically, the organizers agree on a few basics for a successful film festival: "content is king, collaboration is key and encounters among creative folks are essential". I am glad to confirm that even after this many years, the organizers are still taking "these basics" seriously while developing the festival further and, most importantly, in the right direction.

2022 was another successful year for Zurich Film Festival.

The 18th edition of Zurich Film Festival broke all records and attracted 137'000 visitors (20k more than in 2019), had 580 screenings, with 90 sold-out ones, 38 world and European premieres and, at 41.4%, the highest proportion of female directors than ever before.

As usual, the organisation was impeccable, thanks to the brilliant team behind Zurich Film Festival and dedicated volunteers. The press team was supportive and helpful, especially Claudia Wintsch, handling the interview requests and Fabienne Kipfer from her team. This year I also attended the press conference for the first time and realized that I should do this every year. All because of Christian Jungen, artistic director of the festival who held our attention throughout the press conference with excellent summaries that showcased his knowledge and personal excitement for the movies. 

In addition to providing a significant number of female stories and movies from female directors, Zurich Film Festival continued with #FemaleFilmmakers and #FemaleLife hashtags, making it easy for me to follow them and select female-related movies of my choice. I also managed to see much more, and as in previous years, I was again truly impressed by the balance of different genres, aspiring filmmakers and (potential) blockbusters.

All of this made it easier for me to explore the female factor of the festival as Gimme A Beat. I still had to manage the busy schedule, running around the town's cinemas to see all the planned movies and catching some female directors for interviews. What helped to get more organized was the fact that this year, press ticket purchasing got digitalized as well. Instead of running to the press centre every day, I could order my tickets online and have them all saved in my phone wallet. Super easy, practical and a huge time saver for me.

As listeners of Gimme A Beat (and my family and friends) already know, having a busy schedule is business as usual for me, and with so many great movies, definitely a pleasure. Zurich Film Festival is all about watching movies. My most enjoyable moment is sitting in the dark cinema, fully immersed in the storyline. This year, even if many fabulous events were happening on the festival ground, I haven't attended/seen any of them.

Most importantly, I have seen 30 movies (only a few less than the last year) and managed to get together with 3 female directors, one lead actress and one movie inspiration for quick interviews. 

Considering the number of movies I've seen (30), I will not be reviewing all the movies and posting them on Gimme A Beat page. But, I will continue posting the reviews after tonight's show until the end of the year since most of the movies from the festival are coming to the cinemas next year. If you follow the search with the following hashtags: #zff #zff2022 #gimmeabeat you'll find the ones that I reviewed until today (10) and the new ones. You can also find my highlights if you follow the search with the following hashtags: #zff #zff2022 #highlight #gimmeabeat (8 until today).

In tonight's Gimme A Beat I will be focusing on the following movies:

- The Swimmers, directed and co-written by Sally El Hosaini. I had a chance to interview Sally, Nathalie Issa, lead actress and Yusra Mardini, movie inspiration

- Unruly / Ustyrlig, directed and co-written by Malou Reymannm, whom I had a chance to interview.

- Blue Jean, directed and written by Georgia Oakley, whom I had a chance to interview.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tune in to Gimme A Beat (21.11.2022) tonight to hear my impressions of the Zurich Film Festival, the reviews of the movies in the focus and relevant interviews combined with selected music from female artists.

Tune in for...

Zurich Film Festival 2022  

with click-to-play or playlist from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora featuring: gimme a beat reviews movies at ZFF 2022 Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

I had the pleasure of attending and reviewing Flow Festival (commonly known as Flow) this summer.

You can find more details about the festival, my impressions, interviews with Marcia and Helena and selected DJ mixes in Part I: Marcia Carr and Helena Star at Flow Festival 2022

You can also check my reviews for each day of Flow Festival 2022: day 1, day 2 and day 3, with some additional highlights on day 1 and day 2.

In tonight's show, I will be focusing on Part II of my Flow Festival 2022 review and two other artists that I had a chance to discover, experience and interview: über talented Finish singer-songwriter Lxandra and amazing Barbara Boeing, Brazilian DJ, currently based in Milan.

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Tune in to Gimme A Beat tonight (17.10.2022) to hear Part II of Flow Festival 2022 review, featuring interviews with Lxandra and Barbara Boeing, a selection of the music from Lxandra and Barbara's DJ mix 

Tune in for…

Lxandra and Barbara Boeing at Flow Festival 2022  

from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

Flow Festival (commonly known as Flow) is an urban music and arts festival in Helsinki, Finland. It was created by the Finnish music producer Tuomas Kallio and his friends from the Helsinki-based music collective Nuspirit Helsinki. Since 2004, the festival has been organized annually. Over the years the festival grew from 4000 visitors to 90'000. In 2007 the festival moved to Suvilahti, the former power plant that brings a special vibe to the whole event. 

I've been following Flow for the while now, it caught my attention because of an impressive and well-balanced line-up, with loads of female artists, a great combination of known and less known artists and a variety of genres. And of course, I've seen some great photos (and recordings) of its surroundings and the atmosphere.

Back in 2019, after seeing some great acts performing, I decided that in 2020, I am going to pack my dancing shoes and voice recorder (usually my phone) and head to Helsinki. Flow seemed like a perfect festival to explore its *female factor* with my Gimme A Beat lenses. I was not only excited to attend a festival that I haven’t attended before but also to travel to Finland since I’d never been there.

But 2020 as well as 2021 had something else planned for us, so because of the pandemic, I had to wait until 2022 to finally experienced it.

But this was a festival definitely worth a wait. 

I knew that the line-up was great, but I was blown away by everything else: impeccable organisation, amazing crowds, a very kind and helpful press team and its perfect location. We were also blessed with perfect summer weather, warm and pleasant, but not heavy and too hot, exactly like our summers used to be. In addition, I took some time before and after the festival to explore Helsinki and THAT was another great experience that I truly enjoyed.

During the festival, I had a chance to dance a lot, and this was not only because I really needed it, as I didn’t have much of that during the pandemic, but it was also because there were so many great acts, especially DJs that I can’t imagine anyone being able to resist it.

Consequently, my review of the Flow Festival will feature 3 amazing female DJs: Marcia Carr, Helena Star and Barbara Boeing and one über talented singer-songwriter: Lxandra. And because there is so much material that I brought home, to my dear Gimme A Beats listeners, I will be sharing this in two radio shows, one happening tonight and another one in October.

In the meantime, you can check my reviews for each day: day 1, day 2 and day 3, with some additional highlights on day 1 and day 2.

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Tune in to Gimme A Beat tonight (19.09.2022) to hear the review of Flow Festival 2022, interviews with Marcia and Helena and selected DJ mixes showcasing their passion for music and skills. 

Tune in for…

Marcia Carr and Helena Star at Flow Festival 2022  

from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries

My personal experience with music in the movies is that if chosen correctly, hearing the music when watching the scene will make it more intense and therefore memorable.

My rationale behind this is simple: there is an emotion that music triggers in us because of the music itself or/and the lyrics of the song. For me and I can imagine that this is the same for many people, the great songs trigger images as well. And when we are watching the movie, if the storyline and casting are done well, so that we can dive deep into the story, it will also trigger the strong emotions in us. 

If both: music and images (in the movies, tv series and even videos) are perfectly aligned, we will get an amplification of emotions. And with all our senses being involved we will automatically remember this feeling, making what we see more memorable.

I was reminded about this recently. 

A few weeks ago one of my favourite songs of all time: Kate Bush's *Running Up That Hill* was featured in the popular TV series, Stranger things. This was not only the one of the most memorable moments of season 4, but also the moment that brought this phenomenal song back to the chart, 37 years after it was originally released. The song is still number one in many countries, only being overshadowed by a few other artists with current hits.

Even if I had a clear memory of the video for this song, this new experience brought me new images. So now, every time I watch the scene from the stranger things, I have the intense, goosebumps emotion that I used to have when watching the original video. 

And this is why I decided to dedicate (yet) another Gimme A Beat to the music from TV series, not just one, but three,  just to prove my point that: Music Makes Better TV. 

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Tune in to Gimme A Beat tonight (20.06.2022) to hear more about these TV series: Physical, Stranger things and Everything I Know About Love, and my selection of the songs from their soundtracks, sung by female artists.

Tune in for…

Music Makes Better TV  

with click-to-play or playlist

from 22:00 - 00:00 on: webradio lora

Kisses, Babymonster ————————————————————————–

for the info about old shows please go to previous entries