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Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets (1989)
Character: Self
Maria Beatty's documentary exploring the insights and influences of the American Beat Poets. The film conveys their consciousness and sensibility through interviews with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, among others. Also weaves in additional commentary from contemporary musicians, poets and writers such as Marianne Faithfull, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins. Also expands upon how the poets reached new levels of creativity and inspired social change.
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Une semaine dans la vie de camarades (1976)
Character: N/A
A road movie whose journey intersects with and extends the events of the International Counter-Culture Meeting that took place in 1975 in Montreal. This meeting, at the heart of the film, features several important figures of the counterculture in Quebec. Throughout the film, these individuals, often through their creative endeavors, question the evolution of their society and counterculture itself.
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Outrider (2025)
Character: N/A
Outrider is a portal into fast-speaking poet Anne Waldman and her six decades birthing vibrant communities of poets, performers, and activists—from Greenwich Village, St. Mark's Poetry Project, and Naropa University 'Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics,' onwards to Mexico City, Casablanca, and more. Guided by ancestors of the Beat generation and poetic kinships with radical female musicians—Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Cecilia Vicuña, Meredith Monk—Outrider celebrates Waldman's role as a visionary word-worker and a transcendent presence, singing out in the ancient, bardic tradition the thunderous power of poetry.
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Beside Myself (2024)
Character: N/A
Step outside yourself, look back at yourself, whom do you see? That’s the question Bob Holman asks in his poem “Beside Myself.” A small band of Bob's friends voice the poem in alternating identities for this meditative reflection on A.I. and the life cycle of the creative process.
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Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds (1979)
Character: Self
After World War II a group of young writers, outsiders and friends who were disillusioned by the pursuit of the American dream met in New York City. Associated through mutual friendships, these cultural dissidents looked for new ways and means to express themselves. Soon their writings found an audience and the American media took notice, dubbing them the Beat Generation. Members of this group included writers Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg. a trinity that would ultimately influence the works of others during that era, including the "hippie" movement of the '60s. In this 55-minute video narrated by Allen Ginsberg, members of the Beat Generation (including the aforementioned Burroughs, Anne Waldman, Peter Orlovsky, Amiri Baraka, Diane Di Prima, and Timothy Leary) are reunited at Naropa University in Boulder, CO during the late 1970's to share their works and influence a new generation of young American bohemians.
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Nova '78 (2025)
Character: Self (archive footage)
Resurrected through UK-led archival restoration NOVA 78' shows never-before-seen footage of the legendary Nova Convention where William Burroughs, Patti Smith, Zappa, Ginsberg and more collided in an explosion of ideas, art and rebellion.
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Renaldo and Clara (1978)
Character: Sister of Mercy
Filmed in the autumn of 1975 prior to and during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour – featuring appearances and performances by Ronee Blakley, T-Bone Burnett, Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson, Arlen Roth, Phil Ochs, Sam Shepard, and Harry Dean Stanton – the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life.
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Poetry in Motion (1982)
Character: Self
More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.
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William S. Burroughs Birthday Bash (2014)
Character: Poet
To celebrate the 100th birthday of America's most audacious writer, William S. Burroughs, Chicago Humanities Festival brings together a motley crew of poets, writers, and musicians. William Seward Burroughs (1914 - 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He was a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author whose influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs's needs took him across the United States, down into Mexico, to Europe and beyond. On his travels, he meets up with various members of the underground drug and "outcast" cultures.
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Aleph (2021)
Character: Dreamer (voice)
Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.
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