Dons of Disco
by Karen Pecota

A music-theme documentary under the direction of filmmaker and movie marketing creative, Jonathan Sutak, uncovers a 30-year-old secret within the 1980s Disco scene. The scandal is outlined in his first feature-film documentary in Dons of Disco.

A Blonde American named Den Harrow (stage name) became famous in the 1980s with his Disco music world-wide. His songs that dominated the pop-charts in Europe were "Future Brain," "Bad Boy," and "Don't Break My Heart."

Recently, the American photographer, Thomas Barbey discovers that Harrow's voice was involved in a strange music project where an Italian model, Stefano Zandri was the face, body and image of the songs; and the voice was that of musician, Tom Hooker. Zandri was lip-syncing Hooker's songs for decades. He'd been enjoying unbelievable fame but Hooker wasn't as lucky.

Sutak's discovery of this crazy story is not one that is only dealt with in the annals of the Italo Disco era of days gone-by but to this day a rivalry is still alive. Sutak's explains, "No body in America knows about Den Harrow but they care about art, authorship, collaboration, legacy, deception, self-deception, nostalgia, not to mention ego."

The investigative work detailed in Sutak's documentary gives insight into the price one is willing to pay for fame and the pitfalls when one's talent is not protected.

Sutak describes that both Tom Hooker (the voice) and Stefano Zandri (the face) both made compromises of their talent before understanding future ramifications which stills impacts them today. "If you're younger, you might be engaging in your own "deal with the devil" and it just isn't obvious yet. (Watch out!) Sutak says, "...If you're older, you might be on your own journey toward redemption." Thirty-years of turmoil is a long time and at whose expense?