The 19th Media City Film Festival kicked off at MOCAD  (a Knight Arts grantee) on Tuesday, May 21st with a live musical performance featuring Michael Snow/Canadian Creative Music Collective and Wolf Eyes. The international film festival, which has run the last two nights, will continue through Saturday, May 25th, with all film screenings taking place at Capitol Theatre & Art Centre in Windsor, Ontario. There are free shuttles leaving nightly from the MOCAD and Ann Arbor to shuttle festival-goers to and from the screenings. More information and a complete schedule, including information on the closing night party and award show is available here.

Music and film lovers gathered at the MOCAD for the kick-off of the 19th Media City Film Festival.

The performance at the MOCAD drew an all-ages crowd, some longtime fans of the CCMC, which formed in 1974 and has hung together in various configurations based on a collective desire to “play music that is fluid, spontaneous and self-regulating.” On hand for the evening’s performance were Michael Snow on piano, John Oswald speaking through his saxophone, and Al Maddis alternating between bass, guitar and keyboard.

The CCMC, right to left, Al Maddis, Michael Snow, John Oswald.

After a break soundtracked by DJ Brad Hales of People’s Records, the younger set stepped up as local favorite Wolf Eyes took the stage, on the tail end of their spring tour. Nate Young, John Olson and James Baljo are an experimental trio in their own right, though the experiment seems to have more to do with a kind of sonic blenderizing of multiple music genres, including hardcore, free jazz, industrial, electronics and death metal.

Wolf Eyes gets down to business with a loudness.

It’s a big weekend in Detroit! If international film isn’t your thing, perhaps you’d like to get into the mix at the 2013 Movement Festival, the city’s epic electronic music fest that draws attendants from all over the world. MOCAD will be hosting a Friday night music/dance performance/dance party beginning at 9 p.m. If art theory on a Saturday evening gets your motor running, Ben Hall will be giving an artist talk with Sebastian Black at 6 p.m. at 2739 Edwin Gallery in Hamtramck. For outdoorsy types, Husqvarna is sponsoring the Motown Modown, a 24-hour mowing event/roving city beautification crew that will run from Saturday, 10 a.m. through Sunday, 10 a.m.

The mowing route for the Motown Modown.

One thing is for sure, it’s not the weekend for sitting still.