Thor Harris

Viva Les Amis looks at one local café as an example of a national trend: The loss of the mom and pop shop. The film explores the 27 year history of Les Amis Café – a sidewalk café that served almost three decades of eclectic customers and staff. Through the eyes of Newman Stribling, once manager of Les Amis Café, now cab driver, the film delves into the long history of Les Amis, and reveals the present: Les Amis Café replaced by a Starbucks.

From their roots as a brutal, confrontational industrial band, through breakups and chaos, to their odds-defying current status as one of the most accomplished and ambitious bands in the world, one whose concerts are more like ecstatic rituals than nostalgic trips. SWANS has always been a collection of singular performers, but there's been one constant since its formation in 1982--singer, songwriter Michael Gira. 'Where Does a Body End?' is a SWANS documentary with unfettered access to hundreds of hours of Gira/SWANS archives of never-seen-before recordings, videos, and photographs. An unfiltered story of a life in the arts, frequent difficulty spanning decades without a safety net, creating work because Gira says "What else am I going to do?"

SWANS recorded live 2010/2011. Track listing: No Words / No Thoughts (18:50) - Avatar (10:36) - The Apostate (19:31) - Beautiful Child (Fragment) (3:43) - Jim (8:16) - Sex God Sex (7:13) - The Seer / I Crawled (32:16)

Included in some CD releases of the Swans album The Glowing Man. Recorded live in 2015.

Festivalhalle Moers, Moers, Germany

On stage, backstage, and at home with Michael Gira and Swans. Short documentary by Pitchfork

7/3/2015 Poland

Included in some CD releases of the Swans album. A live performance, recorded in 2013.