Howard Brookner
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“A ‘Classic’ of a Film You Never Knew Existed”: Aaron Brookner on His NYFF-Debuting Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars
While many (likely most) maverick artists have at least one unrealized moonshot project, few have a record of the high stakes drama of development behind the scenes of that lost dream. And even fewer have a record that’s as cinematically riveting as Howard Brookner’s Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, a fascinating look at the titular theater legend as he goes about crafting — artistically, managerially, financially — the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down, his massive, multinational, 12-hour opera for the 1984 Summer Olympics. And far fewer documentarians have a nephew like Aaron Brookner, […]
by Lauren Wissot on Sep 29, 2025 -
“The Nova Convention… a Free Artistic Experiment”: Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias on Nova ‘78
Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias’s Nova ’78 centers around the Nova Convention, a late ’70s avant-garde extravaganza that took place at NYC’s now defunct Entermedia Theater (Second Avenue and 12th Street) in honor of William S. Burroughs’s return to the U.S. after living more than 20 years abroad. It was also a great excuse to gather a who’s who roster of counterculture icons to perform in the presence of the postmodern wordsmith who’d profoundly impacted them all. That would include Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye, Laurie Anderson and Julia Heyward, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Merce […]
by Lauren Wissot on Aug 22, 2025 -
“He Was a Chameleon”: Director Aaron Brookner | Uncle Howard
In every film, there is the story that you knew you were telling, the story the audience perceives. But there is always some other story, a secret story. It might be the result of your hidden motivations for making the film, or, instead, the result of themes that only became clear to you after you made the movie. It might be something very personal, or it might be a story you didn’t even know you were telling. What is your film’s secret story? I was aware that my uncle Howard [Brooker, director of Burroughs the Movie, 1983] had many secrets […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 27, 2016 -
DPs Gregg de Domenico and André Döbert on the Howard Brookner Doc, Uncle Howard
Gregg de Domenico has more than 10 years of industry experience as a cinematographer, camera operator and second AC. At Sundance 2016, de Domenico served as co-cinematographer for Uncle Howard, a documentary on filmmaker Howard Brookner and the search for his archival remains of his debut documentary, Burroughs. de Domenico lensed the film with first-time DP André Döbert. In this interview, de Domenico and Döbert discuss the film’s blend of archival and new footage along with other visual challenges. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 26, 2016 -
Structuring Uncle Howard in Production and Post using William Burroughs’s The Western Lands and Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru
One of the earliest challenges in making Uncle Howard was figuring out how to tell a story around a main character who is essentially absent. My uncle, Howard Brookner, was a fairly obscure director, whose work went missing to varying degrees, and who had died some 25 years ago. Yet, to me and others around him, he left a very strong memory and spirit. How to show this? For inspiration, my producer, Paula Vaccaro, and I turned to Howard’s friend and former film subject, William S. Burroughs (Burroughs: The Movie, 1983), whose book, The Western Lands, was the last he wrote before dedicating himself […]
by Aaron Brookner on Jan 26, 2016
