Italo Disco: The Sparkling Sound of the ’80s premiered at the Ji.hliava Internation Documentary Film Festival in Prague last week. Directed by Alessandro Melazzini, the film covers the music genre of its namesake.
Melazzini has produced documentaries on subjects ranging from Cistercians (a Catholic order of nuns and monks) to a porn star-turned politician. “Italo Disco was a perfect fit in between, don’t you think?” Melazzini said in a recent interview with Variety.
Mainly produced in the ’80s, Italo disco began taking shape following a decline in American interest in disco music. As fewer and fewer English-speaking artists produced disco, which was still popular in Europe in the ’80s, Italian disco jockeys had to import records.
These records proved to be prohibitively expensive. In response, Italian artists began creating their own version of disco, resulting in the Italo disco genre.
The film aims to explore the beginnings of the trend along with how it influenced the sound of the ’80s and laid the foundation for successful mainstream artists such as Daft Punk. A press release says the film “takes the viewer on a journey of discovery of a sound that is as commercial as it is futuristic.” Melazzini interviews prominent figures from the movement include Sabrina Salerno, Linda Jo Rizzo, Johnson Righeira, and others.
You can watch the official trailer for Italo Disco: The Sparkling Sound of the ’80s here.
