Watch the trailer for a new Italo Disco documentary

"They were cybernetic tracks fueled by hopes and dreams of the young musicians, who were capable of releasing mind-blowing pop, and always moving between trash and brilliance..."

Director Alessandro Melazzini has revealed the trailer for the new documentary on the Italo Disco scene.

Italo Disco: The Sparkling Sound of the ’80s premiered at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in Prague last week. The film features interviews with characters Claudio Casalini to Daniele Baldelli, La Bionda to Sabrina Salerno.

Read More: House of Music: The Life & Death of the World’s Greatest Italo Label.

Melazzini (whose previous documentaries ranged from “nuns to porn stars”) spoke to Variety last week about the film’s premiere.

“My previous documentary was about Cistercians,” Melazzini told the site. “My second-last one was on porno star-turned-politician Ilona Staller, a.k.a. Cicciolina. ‘Italo Disco’ was a perfect fit in between, don’t you think?”

Music unites but it can also highlight differences, Melazzini says. His film, meanwhile, has been called “an excursion to another time and place, maybe to another planet,” and to an epoch when millions of Europeans indulged in “synthesized sounds, catchy melodies and generally bizarre English lyrics, all often combined with insistently futuristic videos.” But more than simply a tour of big-hair, big-show glam, “Italo Disco” offers up for consideration the circumstances of the music industry of the era and its role in pushing a soundtrack some would prefer to forget.

 

A press release describes the Italo Disco’s reference to an era “where millions of young Europeans would let loose to a wild beat of music made with synthetic and captivating melodies, more or less weird English lyrics, electronic rhythms and visionary music videos. They were cybernetic tracks fueled by hopes and dreams of the young musicians, who were capable of releasing mind-blowing pop, and always moving between trash and brilliance. It was the world of Italo Disco: born in Italy, reinforced in Germany, that made the whole planet dance. By telling the birth and development of a music genre with many souls, this documentary analyzes the creative, productive and business aspects of what was a music industry and social phenomenon. By doing an in depth archive research with interviews to artists and leading personalities of that time. Such as Sabrina Salerno, Linda Jo Rizzo, Johnson Righeira, Savage and La Bionda brothers, together with djs today’s experts including DJ Hell and Mathias Modica. Pulsing to the engaging rhythm of tracks of that era, as well as revealing lesser-known cult songs unknown to the general public, Italo Disco. The sparkling sound of the 80s takes the viewer on a journey of discovery of a sound that is as commercial as it is futuristic.”