El Documental del mes - LOMAX, THE SONGHUNTER - el Documental del mes

Alan Lomax (1915-2002) was a collector, but not an ordinary one. For a big part of his life, he travelled around the world with his recording equipment, hunting the prettiest songs. When Rogier Kappers, the director, visits Alan Lomax to make him an interview, he discovers that Alan cannot talk due to a brain hemorrhage. The director then decides to look for the people that Alan recorded years before. His journey leads him past desolate Scottish islands, through the withered interior of Spain and to isolated Italian mountain villages. Kappers finds the people that Lomax had turned into artists: old farmers, day laborers, housewives and shepherds; they all do their best to sing the prettiest song. In this passionate and musical roadmovie we slowly discover why folk music can be so pretty and what could have once possessed the legendary Alan Lomax.

Rogier Kappers was born in Holland. He studied Visual Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. He worked as a cameraman, as a sound technician and as an editor in different Dutch television networks. Among his works we can find the short films The Secret of War (1995), Sand (2000), and A Refuse Collector in Istanbul (2002).

> Gouden Kalf Award (‘Golden Vear Award’) to the Best Dutch Documentary of the Year in the Dutch Film Festival of Utrecht. The Netherlands, 2005.

> Official selection at the IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam)

> Official selection at the International Film Festival of Melbourne. Australia, 2005.

> Official selection at the Film and Television Festival of Cologne. Germany, 2005.