Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, the film documenting the creation of Youssou's 2004 Grammy-winning album, Egypt, recently completed its theatrical run in the Netherlands and will open in theaters in Belgium on March 25. The film, already the winner of a number of international film festival awards, from the Middle East to Brazil, made its US premiere earlier this week at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where it is an Official Selection; the final SxSW festival screening will take place Saturday night. In the next few months, the film will premiere at many film festivals in both the US and Europe. 

Wilco's live concert film Ashes of American Flags, set for DVD release on Record Store Day, April 18, had it's world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana, last Friday night. Tonight, it will be screened at San Francisco's Roxie Theater as part of the Noise Pop Festival. The film receives its first screening in Wilco's hometown of Chicago on March 9 for the inaugural Chicago International Movies and Music Festival.

Steve Reich is a featured composer at this year's Modfest, an annual festival at Vassar College celebrating the music, art, poetry, and film of the 20th and 21st centuries. Modfest 2009 began late last week and runs through February 13, with a total of 18 events, including two all-Reich concerts, a conversation with the composer, a dance performance of works set to his music, a film screening and discussion, and a lecture about Reich's music.

Dartmouth College is hosting Philip Glass this week for a residency that culminates in a public event Thursday night titled An Evening of Films and Discussion with Philip Glass. The event will begin with the screening of two of Glass's film collaborations—Godfrey Reggio's Anima Mundi (1992) and the short film Evidence (1995)—followed by an onstage discussion between the composer and Margaret Lawrence, the director of the school's Hopkins Center for the Arts.

Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, the documentary film that follows N'Dour as he records and tours with his Grammy-winning 2004 album, Egypt, begins its European theatrical release today in six cities across the Netherlands. After the film's world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last summer, the Toronto Star described it as "a stirring documentary" that "pulses with life and energy." The film is slated for US release on June 12.

Following its Met premiere earlier this month, John Adams's 2005 opera Doctor Atomic was described as the composer's "most complex and masterly music" by the New York Times and "hauntingly powerful, deeply humane and eloquent" by the Boston Globe. This Saturday's matinee will be broadcast live in movie theaters around the world through The Met: Live in HD, which reaches close to 800 screens. Met General Manager Peter Gelb tells the Boston Herald: "I was determined to bring [Adams] to the company. Taking advantage of that with new media just adds to the experience."

Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, a new feature film by director Chai Vasarhelyi documenting the creation of and worldwide response to N'Dour's Grammy-winning 2004 album, Egypt, won the audience award at the closing ceremonies of the 32nd Annual São Paulo International Film Festival last week. The film debuted at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals earlier this year and was awarded the Black Pearl Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Middle East International Film Festival in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago.

Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, the new film by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, has won the Black Pearl Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Middle East International Film Festival. The film follows N'Dour as he records and tours with his Grammy-winning 2004 album, Egypt. N'Dour himself performed following the film's screening at the festival, held in Abu Dhabi.

Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love, a new film documenting the making of Egypt, Youssou's seminal 2004 musical exploration of Islam, makes its Telluride Film Festival debut this weekend. While the schedule of screenings remains hush-hush until the proceedings begin tomorrow, it's safe to assume that Youssou will be involved in the festivities. The film examines the critical and public response to the album at home in Senegal, and abroad, where it garnered a Grammy Award. The following week, the film will be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Youssou will also perform in a free concert.

When John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic premiered at the San Francisco Opera in October 2005, the New York Times' Anthony Tommasini declared that it "must surely be considered the musical event of the year in America." Documentary filmmaker Jon Else was there when the curtain went up, as he had been throughout the previous year, capturing the efforts of the composer and his longtime collaborator, director/librettist Peter Sellars, to tell, through opera, the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the start of the nuclear age. Times film critic Stephen Holden calls the resulting documentary, Wonders Are Many, "enthralling." The film makes its way from successful festival runs to its theatrical debut, opening in NYC and LA this afternoon. Doctor Atomic makes its Metropolitan Opera debut in this October. 

"There is no question what DVD you should snatch up this week. It's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," writes Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers. "Directed by Tim Burton and starring his muse, Johnny Depp, the film version of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway classic is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending. Depp received an Oscar nomination as Best Actor and he deserved to win if Daniel Day-Lewis hadn't blown the category away in There Will Be Blood."

The Tim Burton-directed film version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Helena Bonham Carter as his cohort in crime, is available now on DVD. The special collector's edition includes an in-depth look at the Sondheim musical, behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the film, and the history of the legend of the Demon Barber, among a number of additional special features.