The Tofifest IFF would like to invite you to the first concert of this kind in Poland, during which excellent musicians are going to pay tribute to David Bowie, who was a great star of both the stage and screen.
The concert that will take place after the Closing Ceremony of the 14th edition of Tofifest 2016 features such artists as Brodka, Natalia Przybysz, Skubas, Tymon Tymanski, and Tomasz Makowiecki. The concert will be accompanied by a film section dedicated to films featuring David Bowie.
David Bowie, one of the most important artists in the history of pop music passed away on 10th January, this year. The concert that will follow the Closing Ceremony of the 14th edition of the Tofifest IFF, on 22nd October, will be the first ever tribute paid by Polish artists to the precursor of many music genres, including: glam rock, art rock, dance pop, punk, and electronic music. However, David Bowie was more, than just music.
“The idea to play a concert in tribute to David Bowie came to me naturally. He was both a talented musician and actor. Therefore, he belonged not only to the world of music, but also to the world of cinema,” says the originator of the event, Kafka Jaworska, director of Tofifest.
Ready for Bowie
“I did not need to persuade anybody much, because everybody was more than enthusiastic about the idea,” says Krzysztof Wachowiak from Enerde Club, producer of the concert. He also added that Bartek Staszkiewicz, music director of the concert (and also a keyboardist, music producer, and a winner of the Fryderyk Award, together with his band Sofa), offered invaluable help in completing the final line-up.
As it turns out, some artists – e.g. Tymon and Natalia Przybysz – already had their favourite songs they wanted to perform, because “they had always had them at the back of their minds”. Others spent a lot of time selecting the songs they wanted to sing, since “they had a lot of respect for that Artist,” as they had put it.
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Pontius Pilate Who Fell to Earth
The musician would also portray historic figures. In “Prestige” by Christopher Nolan, David Bowie played the great inventor Nikola Tesla, in “Basquiat” by Julian Schnabel he was Andy Warhol, and Pontius Pilate in “The Last Temptation of Christ” by Martin Scorsese (1988).
Reserve, gentlemen, more reserve
Bowie had the ability to look at his own image created by mass media with reserve. Appearing in one of the most absurd and irreverent scenes from “Zoolander” by Ben Stiller serves as a perfect example of that attitude. He was also a frequent voice-over actor in films, including films for children. For example, in he gave his voice to the master of evil Maltazard himself, in “Arthur and the Invisibles”.
Quite interestingly, he denied the offer to play in the film series about James Bond, where he was to portray Max Zorin in “A View to a Kill”.
It is worth mentioning that his songs have been featured in soundtracks for 530 films (!). David Bowie was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for the theme composed for “Cat People”, and also for the BAFTA Award for the music to “The Buddha of Suburbia”.
Films and Music
The concert is accompanied by a film section dedicated to “David Bowie in Film”. The following films will be screened in that section: “Labyrinth”, “The Hunger”, “The Man Who Fell to Earth”, “Absolute Beginners”, “Mr. Rice's Secret”, “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”; there will also be a touring exhibition under the title “David Bowie Is”.
The “Tribute to David Bowie” concert will take place on 22nd October 2016, after the Closing Ceremony of the 14th edition of the Tofifest IFF, at the Cultural and Congress Centre Jordanki in Torun. Tickets are available on www.bilety24.pl .
The 14th edition of the Tofifest International Film Festival will take place in Torun, from 15th October to 23rd October, 2016. The main topic of this year’s edition will be a discussion about the rebellion of women and struggle for human dignity with reference to “Thelma & Louise” by Ridley Scott, which has its 25th anniversary this year.
The films that will be screened in the “David Bowie in Film” section during the Tofifest IFF include: