FILMS WE LIKE PRESENTS
“PARADISE IS THERE”
Canadian Premiere with special guest Natalie Merchant
at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
Monday, November 2, 2015, 6:30pm
Purchase Advance Tickets
Films We Like is proud to present the Canadian Premiere of Paradise Is There, A Memoir by Natalie Merchant, with the singer-songwriter as special guest, at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Monday, November 2nd. Q has called Natalie Merchant "among the most compelling and distinctive voices of the last decade," while Vogue has said she is "one of the most successful and enduring alternative artists to emerge from the Eighties intact and uncompromised."
Paradise Is There revisits the singer-songwriter’s multi-platinum solo debut Tigerlily, originally released in 1995. Merchants’ entire musical life is encapsulated in this very personal film she directed for Oceans 8 Films. Paradise is There digs deep into her music through live performances, archival footage and interviews. Her fellow musicians, friends and impassioned fans share how the songs of Tigerlily have influenced them over the past 20 years, and how the power of music itself affects us in profound, lasting and uplifting ways.
Twenty years ago Natalie Merchant recorded her first solo album -- Tigerlily -- which sold five million copies and launched her post-10,000 Maniacs career. In those two decades both she and the songs from Tigerlily have matured. Last summer Natalie re-recorded the 11 songs and on November 6th they’ll be released as ‘The New Tigerlilly Recordings’.
Natalie Merchant
Q has called Natalie Merchant "among the most compelling and distinctive voices of the last decade," while Vogue has said she is "one of the most successful and enduring alternative artists to emerge from the Eighties intact and uncompromised." Her career began in 1981 when, as a college student, she joined the seminal alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs, which signed to Elektra Records in 1984. As lead vocalist, lyricist, and sometimes pianist, Merchant released six critically acclaimed studio albums with the band, including the platinum-certified In My Tribe (1987), Blind Man's Zoo (1989), Our Time in Eden (1992), and MTV Unplugged (1993).
She left the group in 1993, and in 1995 released her multi-platinum solo debut, Tigerlily, followed by the platinum Ophelia (1998) and Motherland (2001). In 2003 she independently released an album of traditional and contemporary folk music, The House Carpenter's Daughter, which also coincided with the birth of her child. For the next seven years she lived quietly in New York's Hudson Valley devoting herself to family and community, while taking opportunities to collaborate with other musicians and strengthen her commitment to activism and philanthropy.
In 2010, Merchant returned with a thematic double album, Leave Your Sleep, her debut for Nonesuch Records. For this meditation on childhood and mothering Merchant set 19th- and 20th-century American and British children's poetry to music. She also collaborated with award-winning children's book illustrator Barbara McClintock for a picture book based on the album.
In 2014, Nonesuch released Natalie Merchant, her sixth solo album and first of entirely original songs in 13 years, which the New York Times called a "set of dark, brave, thoughtful and serenely startling songs" and the Daily Telegraph praised for the "intelligence of her writing, and piercing character studies that thicken with each musical brushstroke." Merchant remains dedicated to a wide array of social justice and environmental causes.
Recently, she spearheaded the making of the protest concert film Dear Governor Cuomo (2013) with New Yorkers Against Fracking, actors Mark Ruffalo and Melissa Leo, and filmmakers Jon Bowermaster and Alex Gibney, and she directed and produced SHELTER: A Concert Film to Benefit Victims of Domestic Violence (2014).
Films We Like
Founded by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential, Altman) Films We Like is a boutique distributor of documentary, independent and international films in Canada. Recent releases include Force Majeure, Finding Vivian Maier, and the Academy Award-winner Ida.
Special guest Natalie Merchant will be in Toronto to introduce the film and participate in a post-screening Q&A at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Monday, November 2, 2015.
Running time: 80 minutes
Download press notes, hi-res images, trailer
Media Contact:
Virginia Kelly, Meghan Parnell
V Kelly & Associates