The Orson Welles directed Hopper/Welles will be presented at the annual AFI Fest this month.
Its inclusion was announced today by the American Film Institute.
The eight-day film festival, set for October 15-22, is based out of Los Angeles, though it will be held virtually this year because of the pandemic. It showcases more than 125 films each year in several sections — Galas, Special Screenings, New Auteurs, Documentary, World Cinema, Cinema’s Legacy and Shorts.
Hopper/Welles made its debut at the Venice International Film Festival in Italy and had its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival.
It is slated to be shown later this month at the 25th Busan International Film Festival, the largest movie fest in Asia and at the American Film Festival in Poland next month. Hopper/Welles will also play the Vienna Film Festival in Austria and the El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt.
Comprised of previously unknown interview footage uncovered and assembled by producer Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski, Hopper/Welles captures a November 1970 conversation shot during The Other Side of the Wind between Orson Welles and Easy Rider director Dennis Hopper. Two cameras filmed the approximately two-and-a-half-hour conversation, which has been trimmed to 130 minutes.
The overwhelming majority of the two-camera, black and white footage — lit only by hurricane lamps and the glow of a fireplace — had never been publicly seen before. It was among the 1,083 reels of The Other Side of the Wind footage that was inventoried and scanned in 2017.
Film historian Joseph McBride’s review of Hopper/Welles can be found at wellesnet.com/hopper-welles-easy-rider-mcbride and our interview with Rymsza and Murawski at wellesnet.com/inside-hopper-welles
HOPPER/WELLES
Director: Orson Welles
Producer: Royal Road Entertainment (Filip Jan Rymsza)
Co-producers: Grindhouse Releasing (Bob Murawski) and Fixafilm (Wojciech Janio)
Executive producers: Jon Anderson, Jonathan Gardner
Cast: Dennis Hopper, Orson Welles with Janice Pennington and Glenn Jacobson
Director of photography: Gary Graver
Cutter: Bob Murawski, a.c.e.
Assistant editor: Dov Samuel
Camera operators: Gary Graver, John Willheim
Assistant camera: Connie Graver
Gaffer: R. Michael Stringer
Sound: Bob Dietz, Jussi Tegelman
Title design: Garson Yu
Running time: 130 minutes
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