Award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney recently finisheded production on his latest music documentary, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, following a three year shoot, according to Deadline. The anticipated project’s completion comes as it’s also being reported that its filmmakers are preparing to bring it on the film festival circuit this fall.
The movie chronicles the career of the titular Grammy Award-winning folk-pop singer-songwriter. The documentary also follows Simon’s journey creating his new album, Seven Psalms. The track on the record pose questions about faith and mortality, particularly during the pandemic, and also feature him contending with his hearing loss.
Throughout In Restless Dreams, Gibney and Simon also journey through a dreamlike world of storytelling that transcends both time and space, as it moves freely between present and past. The film also showcases both his music making in the here-and-now.
The movie also offers a unique peek into Simon’s entire career, from Tom & Jerry to Simon & Garfunkel and the triumphs of Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints. Rarely seen and heard footage of Simon on his own in England in 1964; outtakes from the 1969 16mm documentary, Songs of America; and early rehearsal videos from his first days playing with Graceland musicians in Johannesburg are also featured in the film. Wynton Marsalis, Lorne Michaels and Simon’s wife, Edie Brickell, also offer important insights about the musician and his songs in the upcoming movie.
“In early 2021 amid the pandemic, Paul invited me to film him while he was making his most recent album, Seven Psalms. Paul was losing his hearing in one ear, and it was a devastating time. His tribulations in making that album about faith and mortality are the emotional heart of this story,” Gibney shared about working with Simon on In Restless Dreams. “Creating a visual dreamscape to meet Paul’s life as an artist has been painstaking, and one of my greatest joys.”
Jigsaw Productions produced the documentary with Closer Media and Anonymous Content. Closer Media and Anonymous Content also co-financed the film. The movie’s producers include Gibney, Erin Edeiken, David Rahtz and Svetlana Zill. Jeff Kramer, Stacey Offman, Richard Perello and Kristen Vaurio are serving as executive producers on In Restless Dreams.
Zhang Xin, William Horberg, Joey Marra, and Bob Xu are also serving as executive producers on the feature, on behalf of Closer Media. Nick Shumaker, Jessica Grimshaw, and David Levine are also serving as executive producers on the project, on behalf of Anonymous Content.
“Paul Simon’s songs, solo and with Simon and Garfunkel, were my favorites as a student in the U.K. in the ‘80s as a girl fresh from China having grown up during the Cultural Revolution when there was no exposure to the outside world,” said Zhang Xin, Executive Producer and Founder of Closer Media.
The movie marks the third and latest collaboration between Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, Closer Media and Anonymous Content, which also co-financed the project, over the past year. They have also partnered to produce Musk, a documentary that will provide an “unvarnished examination” of businessman Elon Musk, for HBO. The production companies are also collaborating on Orwell, a feature documentary about George Orwell, the author of the acclaimed novel, 1984, which is being directed by Raoul Peck.
“Paul Simon wrote the songbook for so many of our lives. Alex Gibney is one of our great visual storytellers. Zhang Xin and I are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with artists like Alex and Paul, and to support this film-for-the-ages as one of our very first projects at Closer Media,” said William Horberg, Executive Producer for Closer Media.
Known for his deeply insightful documentaries, some of Gibney’s most successful investigative films include the Academy Award-winning Taxi to the Dark Side; the Oscar-nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; the triple Emmy and Peabody-winning Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine; and The Inventor: Out for Blood In Silicon Valley, which focuses on the Theranos scandal, and won the WGA Award for Best Documentary Screenplay.
Altitude, UTA and AC Independent are selling the rights to In Restless Dreams globally.