The 16th annual Sound Unseen Festival kicks off Wednesday, Nov. 11, and runs through Sunday, Nov. 15, with events and screenings in both Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Sound Unseen Festival's director Jim Brunzell and co-programmer Rich Gill join Jill Riley and Sean McPherson on The Current's Morning Show to talk about the festival.

"All of our programming has to do in some way with music, be it documentaries, short films, narratives, some sort of musical spin to it," Gill says.

Curation of Sound Unseen begins in January, when lineups for festivals around the world — such as Sundance, Slamdance, the Berlin Film Festival and SXSW — are announced. "We're very aware of all these festivals that are popping up around the world, and a lot of them have sidebars of music or art programs," Brunzell says, "so there are films we definitely want to take a look at and see what's happening."

Brunzell and Gill look at the recent crop of music-related films so that Sound Unseen's lineup is current and topical.

In their conversation with Jill and Sean, Brunzell and Gill list these films as ones they're particularly excited about for this year's festival.

Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It (Niger)
A homage of Purple Rain and The Harder They Come. The title is inspired by the fact the sub-Saharan Tamashek language has no word for "purple."

I Am Thor (USA, Canada and Finland)
"Thor was a bodybuilder in the 80s who was also in a power-metal band that never quite took off, never really made it," Gill says. "It follows him doing a farewell tour to give it one last hurrah to make it. It's very similar to the Anvil documentary of a few years ago."

What's Happening: The Beatles in the USA (USA)
A candid account of The Beatles arrival in America in February 1964 by Albert Maysles and David Maysles.

Gimme Shelter (USA)
A 45th-anniversary of this documentary about the tragically ill-fated Rolling Stones free concert at Altamont Speedway on Dec. 6, 1969, by Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin.

Mavis! (USA)
"This was one film that all of us watched that we all just loved and thought would be the perfect opening-night film," Brunzell says.

MPR members who show their member ID on film-screening nights can get tickets for $5.