Rebel Dread

William E. Badgley

"The eloquent self-making of punk film-maker Don Letts. It's an intense, 86-minute pleasure to be in the company of Don Letts: DJ, film-maker, musician, social commentator and thoroughly engaging raconteur. Every word that comes out of his mouth is a manifesto for humanity and creativity." - The Guardian

Don Letts started his career as the owner of London's hippest clothing store, Acme, frequented by The Clash, SexPistols, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry and Marley. There he got the punks to light up the reggae, when the punk clubs appeared in London, Letts was the natural DJ and took center stage in the developing counterculture music scene.

His interest in film made him quickly become a video maker for The Clash (he directed their legendary "London Calling" video), Elvis Costello, the Pretenders and a host of others. He traveled with The Clash and a few years later made the concert documentary "Westway to the World" about the band's first New York concerts.

In 1984 Letts formed the band Big Audio Dynamite with Clash guitarist Mick Jones. In the decades since, Letts has worked as a filmmaker with several punk documentaries (including 2005's "Punk Attitude"), films about Gil Scott-Heron, Sun Ra, George Clinton and The Jam.

He is also a sought-after DJ, who has both put together superior dub compilations and last year he released his first own album, "OuttaSync". In the last two years, the film about Letts himself, "Rebel Dread" and the autobiography, "There and black again" arrived.

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Don Letts is coming to the Halden International Music Film Festival in April for a Q&A session in connection with the screening of "Rebel Dread" and under the "Make Halden Smile" banner, Letts will perform an exclusive DJ set at Kulturhuset on Saturday 20 April.