Howard Brookner is one of those people who definitely left us too soon. In the late-70s and 80s he had his pulse on the point where the avant garde met the mainstream, essentially becoming William Burrough’s official biopgrapher/videographer, and hanging around everyone from Andy Warhol to Madonna. He was in post-production on his first feature when he died of AIDS in the late 1980s.
However his legacy and the full rediscovery of the life he led wasn’t revealed until 2012, when the archive of film that he shot and other things he created was brought to light after being hidden away in Burrough’s bunker for three decades. Now a documentary has been made about Brookner by his nephew, which is premiering at Sundance.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘UNCLE HOWARD is an intertwining tale of past and present. New York filmmaker Howard Brookner died of AIDS in 1989, while making his breakthrough Hollywood movie. His body of work, which captured the late 70s and early 80s cultural revolution, was buried in William S. Burroughs’ bunker for 30 years. Now in a personal journey, his nephew Aaron unearths Howard’s filmmaking legacy and the memory of everything he was.’
After you watch the trailer it’s deifficult not to be wowed by the life Brookner led, and also be left wondering what he might have done had he not been taken away so soon.
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