Venice Film Festival lineup includes made-in-Memphis 'Newport & the Great Folk Dream'

The new movie from Memphis author and filmmaker Robert Gordon will have its world premiere in September at the Venice Film Festival, the world's oldest and arguably most significant film showcase.

Crafted from largely never-before-seen footage of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt and other artists, "Newport & the Great Folk Dream" is a documentary that covers the mid-1960s glory years of the Newport Folk Festival, including the infamous Dylan-goes-electric performance of 1965 that inspired the recent hit movie, "A Complete Unknown."

"It began in Newport, it resided for decades in vaults in Long Island, and it was made in Midtown Memphis," said Gordon, 64, referring to his film and the long unseen footage that made it possible.

"Honestly, this is a very prestigious festival," he added, "and I'm elated to be going."

The critical and box-office success of director James Mangold's "A Complete Unknown," which earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (for Timothée Chalamet, who played Dylan), is certain to elevate the profile of Gordon's movie, which presents authentic footage and provides context for some of the events dramatized in Mangold's film, which climaxes at the famous folk festival at Newport, Rhode Island.

Gordon said he and his collaborators had been working almost eight years on the Newport documentary when Mangold's movie arrived, "so there's no way we could have planned the dovetailing. I need to send a thank you note to Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold for expanding the audience. Seriously, they made people aware of the subject of this film in a way that I never could have dreamed of."

He said audiences who enjoyed "A Complete Unknown" are likely to find his "Newport" movie "very fulfilling, because it shows so much of what folk music was drawing from, and also the tension about change in folk music. Folk is about tradition, but even traditions change."

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"Newport" is in part a collaboration between Gordon and New York-based producer Joe Lauro, a longtime archivist and documentary filmmaker who acquired the Newport footage from the late documentarian Murray Lerner. Lauro also rediscovered the footage that was the foundation of Questlove's Oscar-winning documentary, "Summer of Soul."

In addition to writer-director Gordon, several Memphians played significant roles in the documentary, including editor and key collaborator Laura Jean Hocking (also a producer). Among the many other Memphians who contributed are producer Kim Bledsoe Lloyd and sound designer/mixer Kevin Houston.

"The movie is heavy with Memphis connections," Gordon said. "The creative talent, the mixing... Memphis was able to supply us with access to what we needed, and everything was first class. There was no need to go elsewhere."

A three-time Grammy winner for his scholarly and curatorial contributions to projects involving Stax Records and the the power pop band Big Star, Gordon has been an essential chronicler of Memphis-and-more music history for most of his adult life. Among his books are "It Came from Memphis" and "Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied," and his filmography includes documentaries about Johnny Cash, Sun and Stax, and — outside of music, other than the music of witty conversation — the Gore Vidal-vs.-William F. Buckley debates of 1968.

Debuting at the 93-year-old Venice Film Festival as an out-of-competition selection, "Newport & the Great Folk Dream" will unspool in a particularly glamorous environment and prestigious context, alongside new work by some of the world's most acclaimed and successful auteurs. Other movies set to premiere at Venice include Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein," Jim Jarmusch's "Father Mother Sister Brother," and Kathryn Bigelow's political thriller, "A House of Dynamite."

The Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 27-Sept. 9, with "Newport & the Great Folk Dream" premiering Sept. 5. The movie is almost certain to acquire a theatrical and streaming distribution deal at the festival or in the wake of its Venice exposure, and is likely to be made available to the general public next year.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Venice Film Festival lineup includes 'Newport & the Great Folk Dream'