Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman | ... | Self - Record Shop Owner | |
Dennis Coffey | ... | Self - Co-Producer, Cold Fact 1970 | |
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Mike Theodore | ... | Self - Co-Producer, Cold Fact 1970 |
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Dan DiMaggio | ... | Self - Bartender, The Brewery |
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Jerome Ferretti | ... | Self - Bricklayer |
Steve Rowland | ... | Self - Producer, Coming from Reality 1971 | |
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Willem Möller | ... | Self - Musician |
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Craig Bartholomew Strydom | ... | Self - Music Journalist (as Craig Bartholomew-Strydom) |
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Ilse Assmann | ... | Self - Former Apartheid Archivist |
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Steve M. Harris | ... | Self - Teal Trutone |
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Robbie Mann | ... | Self - RPM Records |
Clarence Avant | ... | Self - Former Chairman of Motown Records | |
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Eva Rodriguez | ... | Self - Rodriguez's Eldest Daughter |
Rodriguez | ... | Self (as Sixto Rodriguez) | |
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Regan Rodriguez | ... | Self - Rodriguez's Youngest Daughter |
In the early 1970s, Sixto Rodriguez was a Detroit folksinger who had a short-lived recording career with only two well received but non-selling albums. Unknown to Rodriguez, his musical story continued in South Africa where he became a pop music icon and inspiration for generations. Long rumored there to be dead by suicide, a few fans in the 1990s decided to seek out the truth of their hero's fate. What follows is a bizarrely heartening story in which they found far more in their quest than they ever hoped, while a Detroit construction laborer discovered that his lost artistic dreams came true after all. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Rodriguez (Sugarman), is one of the greatest men I have ever known.
This isn't a review, at least I don't consider it one; I don't review on IMDb, and there's a good chance I never will; but I feel compelled to leave my experience and thoughts, though briefly, here.
I saw this movie today knowing nothing about the subject material or the man himself; after leaving the theatre into a dimming sunset I texted my friend "I have a new hero."
That is probably the greatest praise I have ever gave a film.
Soulful, touching, heartrending and uplifting, this film------ you cannot write this, you cannot make this up, it is a story of true brilliance and daunting inspiration. There is so much to commend, praise, remark about this movie... but honestly I don't want to cite any one thing because it would spoil the experience of watching the story unfold and the mystery of Sugarman being shaped weakened. The bottom line is: It is a story that is too real, poignant, and far-fetched to exist anywhere on a writer's board or in a screenplay; this is why documentaries will never die, and they will always have a reserved place in the realm of cinema, films of fiction and artistry just cannot pierce the depth that this one finds. It is one of the greatest documentaries I have ever seen, possibly the greatest.
I cried throughout the picture. A must-see.
I write this review with the intention that I hope to encourage others to go see this movie: If you do you won't regret it and if you see it years later on television, you'll regret you didn't take the chance when you had it.