Nova '78

The year is 1978, and New York’s autumn is drawing to a close. The East Village is buzzing with anticipation for the Nova Convention, an ambitious, multimedia tribute honouring “the great grey eminence”, William S. Burroughs, captured on film by director Howard Brookner and his crew. Created by Rodrigo Areias and Brookner’s nephew, Aaron Brookner, NOVA ’78 is an archive-based documentary assembled from footage of this three-day event long believed lost. Featuring performances from a cohort of artists and writers, including Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Allen Ginsberg and Laurie Anderson, the film adopts a formally sober approach to the source material, allowing the thrilling momentum of the late ’70s avantgarde to speak for itself, with all its imperfections and naïveté. The optimistic faith in the possibility of a future comes off as more distant and off-putting to the present-day viewer than the unavoidable nostalgia the images carry. Equally distant is Burroughs himself, despite his position as the film’s ostensible centre. On stage, among the crowds, or alone on his strolls, he looks pensive, already miles away and light years ahead, as if he already knew that the idea of progress is nothing but a fallacy. (Öykü Sofuoğlu)

In the presence of Aaron Brookner.

Aaron Brookner (selection): THE SILVER GOAT (2011), UNCLE HOWARD (2016)
Rordigo Areias (selection): TEBAS (2007), HAY ROAD (2012), 1960 (2013), HÁLITO AZUL (2018), SURDINA (2019), VENCIDOS DA VIDA (2020), ARTE DA MEMÓRIA (2021), THE WORST MAN IN LONDON (2024), A PEDRA SONHA DAR FLOR (2024)