IFC shares a Heavy Load

It could be a loud summer of music docs. I’m in process of writing a post about an upcoming metal doc when I noticed that IFC is premiering tonight Heavy Load, a film about a British punk band. Some of the members have learning disabilities, such as the drummer who has Downs Syndrome. The film follows the band while recording their first album The Queen Mother’s Dead and graduating from gigs at social services day centers and disability clubs in East Sussex to mainstream festivals. The band does a fun cover of Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head and also sings about the need for the disabled to rebel against their caregivers and enjoy late night pub life. As Andy Webster puts it in today’s New York Times, “It’s about struggle, the efforts of an ensemble wrestling with artistic obstacles as well as biological ones.”