"Nova '78 centers around the Nova Convention, a late '70s avant-garde extravaganza that took place at NYC's now defunct Entermedia Theater (Second Avenue and 12th Street) in honor of William S. Burroughs's return to the U.S. after living more than 20 years abroad. It was also a great excuse to gather a who's who roster of counterculture icons to perform in the presence of the postmodern wordsmith who'd profoundly impacted them all."
"And just as remarkable is the fact that footage of the three-day event - shot on 16mm by Howard Brookner, Tom DiCillo and Jim Lebovitz with Brookner and Jim Jarmusch on sound - was only recently discovered in 2022 by an archivist at the John Giorno Foundation. Who then naturally placed a call to Aaron Brookner ( Uncle Howard), who's long been on a restoration endeavor, from 1983's Burroughs: The Movie to 1986's Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars (screening at the upcoming NYFF), to keep his late uncle's all-too-brief body of work forever in the public eye."
Nova '78 centers on the Nova Convention, a late-1970s avant-garde event at NYC's Entermedia Theater honoring William S. Burroughs's return after more than twenty years abroad. The three-day gathering assembled counterculture figures including Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Laurie Anderson, Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Merce Cunningham, Philip Glass, John Cage and Frank Zappa. The event was captured on 16mm by Howard Brookner, Tom DiCillo and Jim Lebovitz with Brookner and Jim Jarmusch on sound. In 2022 an archivist at the John Giorno Foundation discovered the footage and contacted Aaron Brookner to recover it. Co-directors Brookner and Rodrigo Areias restored and assembled the material for a festival debut, preserving a key moment in experimental culture.
Read at Filmmaker Magazine
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