Frank Herbert’s Dune has long bewitched filmmakers and despite manyattempts, David Lynch’s unsatisfying 1984 adaptation is the only one that made it to the screen.
Ten years earlier, however, Chilean-born filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky tried to tackle the novel and it’s that attempt that is the centre of a documentary by Frank Pavich, the director of the 1999 music documentary N.Y.H.C.
Titled Jodorowsky’s Dune, the movie is chronicling the two year effort by Jodorowsky and his team of relative unknown artists, artists then went on to become influencers in the sci-fi genre. Among the team were H.R. Giger, who designed the alien in Alien, Dan O’Bannon, who wrote Alien and Total Recall, French artist Jean “Moebius” Giraud, who worked on The Empire Strikes Back, Tron and The Fifth Element, and Chris Foss, who worked on Alien and Superman.
Snowfort Pictures, Camera One of France and Koch Media of Germany are behind the documentary. Stephen Scarlata and Travis Stevens are producing. Exec producing is Donald Rosenfeld, who is Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life in competition at Cannes. Co-producing is Camera One’s Michel Seydoux, who has Alain Cavalier’s Pater screening in competition.
The pic has completed interviews with Jodorowsky, Giger and other surviving members of the original team, shooting in France, Switzerland and the UK, and moves this summer to the U.S. more the second half of its production.
The title is being introduced at Cannes.
