Playlist: Joe Nankin

What’s the best promo you’ve seen recently and why?

Mette - Mama’s Eyes. This hit me hard as it did many others. It feels both simple and grand. It’s a video that somehow holds the churning dance of time, culture, personhood, joy, struggle, power. 

It emits a brightly burning life force that strikes you like a bolt of lightning. It’s truthful, timeless and so captivating. Kudos...

What’s the first promo you remember being impressed by? 

How many of us have traced our careers back to those Directors Label DVDs? It’s like the urtext for a whole generation of filmmakers. I somehow ended up with the Chris Cunningham one. 

Those dark, surreal, wildly creative, strangely beautiful, perversely funny images made a deep impression on me. It was the first time that I thought, “Oh, these can be like little movies. Little art projects. Little worlds unto themselves.”

Particularly Portishead - Only You,  Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy, and  Bjork - All Is Full Of Love.

And what’s your all-time favourite music video? 

What a hard question! I’m gonna cheat here...

Feist - The Bad In Each Other, there could be a few Martin de Thurah videos on this list. FKA Twigs - Video Girl by Kahlil Joseph. Air - All I Need by Mike Mills. 

I’ve always loved my friend Kevan Funk’s video for Ane Trolle - Ribbon Arms. DEVO - Secret Agent Man. Dizzee Rascal - Sirens. The Pharcyde - Drop.

What other directors/artists do you look to for inspiration?

As of late and again and again it's Wim Wenders, Ray Bradbury, Claire Denis, Frank Capra, Sam Shepard, Alice Rohrwacher, David Hockney, Charles Burnett, Ermanno Olmi, Les Blank, Saul Leiter, Yasujirō Ozu, Sidney Lumet, Leonard Cohen, Max Ophüls, David Lynch, Milos Forman, Mathew Barney, Andrea Arnold, Mike Leigh, Hal Ashby, Powell & Pressburger. I could go on and on...

What are you listening to at the moment?

John Coltrane - Ballads, Robbie Basho, Mazzy Star, The Lyman Woodard Organization, the newest Kendrick Lamar, Plastic Ono Band, The Last Emperor Soundtrack, Yusef Lateef, ESG, Caroline Polachek, Jim Sullivan, The Seeds, Sad Lovers And Giants, Ravi Shankar - Improvisations & Theme from Pather Panchali, Hoagy Carmichael, Ana Roxanne, Stereolab, Frantz Casseus, The Internet.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

I just got a new Portable Bluetooth Speaker. I like to play music on set in between setups. It helps create a pleasant working environment, this is something that’s very important to me. Making a Spotify Playlist is a part of my prep list that I probably spend way too much time on...

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

How about a series of lyrical documentary art films made in collaboration with the Folkways Records archive? Something about music as the voice of culture, history, place. How many evocative stories live in that collection

Or maybe Frank Ocean?