Clin d’Oeil Films (Belgium) and Hard Working Movies (US) announced March 10 that Martin Scorsese has boarded Belgian directors Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier’s documentary Dreaming Walls as executive producer. The film, which “explores the mythical past and uncertain future of New York’s counterculture landmark, the Chelsea Hotel,” recently world-premiered in Berlin and is selected for the upcoming CPH:DOX.
In Dreaming Walls we see how the legendary Chelsea Hotel, an icon of 1960s counterculture and a haven for famous artists and intellectuals including Patti Smith, Janis Joplin and the superstars of Warhol’s Factory, is under renovation. Soon it will reopen to the public as one of New York’s most fashionable luxury hotels.
But dozens of people, most in their later years, still live amidst the scaffolding and constant construction. “Against this chaotic backdrop, Dreaming Walls takes us through the hotel’s storied halls, exploring its living body and the bohemian origins that contributed to its mythical stature. Its residents – casualties of capitalism – and the walls themselves now face a turning point in their common history,” says the statement.
Commented Scorsese: “Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier’s Dreaming Walls is a multi-dimensional cinematic requiem for the Hotel Chelsea as it once was—the epicenter of a Bohemian New York that now exists only in memory. I lived through those days, when you could feel the reverberations and shockwaves of the New York avant garde everywhere. In the cinema, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke and Harry Smith, all of whom turn up like ghosts in the film’s rush of images past and present, were guiding lights, embodying and transmitting a precious spirit of unlimited artistic freedom, breaking everything down and building it back up again in brave new forms.”
“And of course the same thing was happening in dance, in music, in theatre, in sculpture, in writing, and it all seemed to emanate from the Chelsea. Dreaming Walls catches the excitement of that great moment in that once beautifully ragged place, and it also catches the sadness of its gradual disappearance,” Scorsese added.
Dreaming Walls is produced by Clin d’Oeil Films (Belgium) and executive produced by Lori Cheatle and Martin Scorsese. Co-producers are Les Films de l’Oeil Sauvage (France), Media International (Belgium), CBA Doc (Belgium), Basalt Film (The Netherlands), Momento Film (Sweden), Hard Working Movies (USA). Sales are handled by Dogwoof.
