Uncle Howard Hits Theaters This Week

Last winter, we released our edition of Howard Brookner’s 1983 documentary Burroughs: The Movie, a candid look at the everyday life of visionary Beat writer William S. Burroughs. The release marked the culmination of a long quest to resurrect the filmmaker’s work, which had fallen into obscurity after his death from AIDS in 1989. The original negative of Burroughs was considered lost, and it was not until 2011 that the director’s nephew, Aaron Brookner, uncovered a print of the film at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as a wealth of previously unseen footage stored in Burroughs’s apartment. This newly discovered material serves as the basis for the critically acclaimed new documentary Uncle Howard, which premiered at Sundance back in January and opens theatrically at New York’s IFC Center on Friday.

We’re pleased to share an exclusive sneak peek of Uncle Howard in the following clip, which features Aaron Brookner and Burroughs cinematographer Tom DiCillo in an editing suite, examining footage of the author walking through late-seventies New York City.