Uncle Howard
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''Uncle Howard'' is a 2016 documentary film about filmmaker
Howard Brookner Howard Brookner (April 30, 1954 – April 27, 1989) was an American film director. He produced and directed the documentary '' Burroughs: the Movie'' about William S. Burroughs (1983), '' Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars'' on theatre director R ...
directed by
Aaron Brookner Aaron Brookner (born December 22, 1981) is an American film director and scriptwriter. His debut feature film wa''The Silver Goat''(2011), the first feature film made for iPad exhibition. He produced the restoration of cult classic '' Burroughs: ...
.


Synopsis

Director
Howard Brookner Howard Brookner (April 30, 1954 – April 27, 1989) was an American film director. He produced and directed the documentary '' Burroughs: the Movie'' about William S. Burroughs (1983), '' Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars'' on theatre director R ...
died of AIDS in NYC in 1989 while in post-production on his breakthrough Hollywood movie. His body of work has been buried for 30 years in
William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
' bunker until his nephew
Aaron Brookner Aaron Brookner (born December 22, 1981) is an American film director and scriptwriter. His debut feature film wa''The Silver Goat''(2011), the first feature film made for iPad exhibition. He produced the restoration of cult classic '' Burroughs: ...
unearths his story and the memory of everything he was.


Production

Production of ''Uncle Howard'' began in 2012 when
Aaron Brookner Aaron Brookner (born December 22, 1981) is an American film director and scriptwriter. His debut feature film wa''The Silver Goat''(2011), the first feature film made for iPad exhibition. He produced the restoration of cult classic '' Burroughs: ...
began to search for the missing print of '' Burroughs: The Movie'' and
Howard Brookner Howard Brookner (April 30, 1954 – April 27, 1989) was an American film director. He produced and directed the documentary '' Burroughs: the Movie'' about William S. Burroughs (1983), '' Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars'' on theatre director R ...
's wider archives. The search yielded the print of ''Burroughs: The Movie'' (which, following a Kickstarter campaign, was digitally remastered and was subsequently re-released by
The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...
and
Janus Films Janus Films is an American film distribution company. The distributor is credited with introducing numerous films, now considered masterpieces of world cinema, to American audiences, including the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sergei Eisenstei ...
), as well as a wide range of archives that reveal the story of Howard Brookner's life and work. In February 2013 ''Uncle Howard'' (then called Smash The Control Machine) was presented in the
Berlinale The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
Talent Project Market, whereupon Jim Jarmusch was announced as executive producer. Aaron Brookner continued to shoot the project through until 2014, up until the special revival screening of ''Burroughs: The Movie'' at the
New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, i ...
, which united many friends and colleagues of Howard Brookner. Aaron Brookner, Jim Jarmusch,
Tom DiCillo Thomas A. DiCillo (born August 14, 1953) is an American film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. Early life He was born in Camp Le Jeune, North Carolina. His father was Italian and his mother was from New England. He studied creative wr ...
, and
James Grauerholz James Grauerholz (born December 14, 1953) is a writer and editor. He is the bibliographer and literary executor of the estate of William S. Burroughs. Life and career Grauerholz was born in Coffeyville, Kansas and attended the University of K ...
took part in a Q&A at the event.


Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack includes songs by Duke Ellington,
Lotte Lenya Lotte Lenya (born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer; 18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best ...
, Vision Fortune, Lightspeed Champion, Josef Van Wissem,
Mogwai Mogwai () are a Scottish post-rock band, formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (guitar, piano, synthesizer, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drums). Mog ...
, Younghusband, Grimm Grimm,
The Pretenders Pretenders are an English–American rock band formed in March 1978. The original band consisted of founder and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards), Pete ...
and
NEU! Neu! (; German for "New!"; styled in block capitals) were a West German krautrock band formed in Düsseldorf in 1971 by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from Kraftwerk. The group's albums were produced by Conny Plan ...
. The movie had Barry Hogan, founder of ATP, as a consultant and Frederic Schindler as
music supervisor A music supervisor is a person who combines music and visual media. According to The Guild of Music Supervisors, a music supervisor is “a qualified professional who oversees all music related aspects of film, television, advertising, video games ...
.


Release

On December 2, 2015, it was announced that ''Uncle Howard'' would premiere in the US Documentary Competition category at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. It has also been selected to be screened in the Panorama section of the 66th Berlin International Film Festival.


Critical reception

On
review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 22 reviews, and an average rating of 6.8/10. On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


References


External links

* *
Uncle Howard
' on
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
* ''Uncle Howard'
IFP Fiscal Sponsorship page
2016 films 2016 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about film directors and producers 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{bio-documentary-film-stub