Two South African music lovers embark on a mission to uncover the fate of an obscure, 1970s-era U.S. rocker whose debut album became a surprise hit in their home country, and uncover a shocking secret along the way. Sixto Diaz Rodriguez had the kind of musical career that every aspiring rock star fears -- lauded by critics but ignored by the public, he released two albums before unceremoniously disappearing from the spotlight. But while sales of Rodriguez's debut CD COLD FACT fell flat in the U.S., overseas in Australia and South Africa, the fans couldn't get enough. In apartheid-torn South Africa in particular, COLD FACT became something of an anti-establishment classic, eventually going platinum. Later, rumors began to swirl that Rodriguez had suffered a horrible death. When Rodriguez's second album COMING FROM REALITY makes it's belated debut in South Africa, a pair of devoted fans take it upon themselves to uncover the facts surrounding the mysterious musician, and get the surprise of a lifetime while attempting to track the profits from his record sales.
Cast List
Sixto Rodriguez - Puerto Rican boxer, FAT CITY
Sixto Noriega Rodriguez - Puerto Rican boxer, FAT CITY
Per Nystrom
Camilia Skagerstrom
Malik Bendjelloul
Stephen Segerman
Eva Rodriguez - Participant
Emil Klang
Nadia Hallgren
Filmtecknama
Arvid Steen
Jonas Lindman
Linus Kullman
Oskar Gullstrand
Steve Rowland
Clarence Avant
Rian Malan
Ilse Assmann
Craig Bartholomew-Strydom
Dennis Coffey
Dan DiMaggio
Rick Emmerson
Jerone Ferretti
Steve M. Harris - Music Exec
Robbie Mann
Willem Moller
Regan Rodriguez
Sandra Rodriguez-Kennedy
Mike Theodore
- Format: Blu-Ray
- Run Time: 86
- Color Format: (unknown/unconverted)
- UPC: 043396413634
- Genre: Music Video: Documentary
- Rating: PG-13 (MPAA)
- Release Date: February 2014
Related Categories:
Movies > Education/General Interest
Movies > Biography
Related Keywords:
Documentary
Music (General)
Rock Music
Musicians
More Details
Reviews:
"SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN possesses undeniable charm..." - 01/20/2012 Hollywood Reporter
3 stars out of 5 -- "Like ANVIL, this is a crowd-pleasing triumph of the spirit, framed around a story so bizarre it sounds like an urban legend." - 01/24/2012 Box Office
4 stars out of 5 -- "Songs such as the haunted 'Sugar Man' are lost classics, blessing Bendjelloul's four-star doc with a five-star soundtrack." - 08/01/2012 Total Film
"[A] hugely appealing documentary about fans, faith and an enigmatic Age of Aquarius musician who burned bright and hopeful before disappearing." - 07/27/2012 New York Times
"SUGAR MAN is most interesting when it touches on the conditions that combined to draw a cult hero out of some decent music and a generously enabled, imagination-firing mystique." - 07/27/2012 Movieline
"[A] moving documentary about spookily talented Detroit singer-songwriter Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, who released two albums of gorgeous, Bob Dylan-esque social commentary and moody, downbeat lyricism to deafening silence in the United States in the early 1970s." -- Grade: A- - 07/26/2012 A.V. Club
4 stars out of 4 -- "[A] documentary that enlists us in the process of its search....The information they eventually dislodge about Rodriguez suggests a secular saint, a deeply good man, whose music is the expression of a blessed inner being." - 08/08/2012 Chicago Sun-Times
"[T]he movie presents Rodriguez as an enigmatic singer-songwriter with Dylan-esque sensibilities, discovered in the 1970s and then forgotten in America..." -- Grade: A- - 08/03/2012 Entertainment Weekly
"Bendjelloul's film is a masterful piece of storytelling....Full of fascinating details..." - 08/01/2012 Sight and Sound