Skip to main content
photo collage of same image repeated many times, a man in a pink shirt

Eno | A live performance screening and Q&A with Director Gary Hustwit

VIFF Live

This event has passed

The world’s first generative documentary is a groundbreaking exploration of the life and work of visionary musician and artist Brian Eno, a film that’s different every time it’s shown.

Renowned filmmaker Gary Hustwit’s (Helvetica, Rams) new documentary employs revolutionary technology to explore Brian Eno’s career and creative strategies. Best known for co-founding Roxy Music, pioneering the genre of ambient music, and producing David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, and dozens of others, Eno has also released over 40 solo and collaboration records.

In the first career-spanning documentary of the legendary and prolific artist and the world’s first generative feature film, Hustwit set out to decode Eno’s creative strategies and examine his lifelong search for the meaning of music. Hustwit and creative technologist Brendan Dawes developed custom generative software to sequence scenes, using Hustwit’s original interviews with Eno, extensive never-before-seen archive of unreleased footage, as well as an original score by Eno.

Each screening of Eno is unique, presenting different scenes, order, music, and meant to be experienced live. The generative and infinitely iterative quality of Eno poetically resonates with the artist’s own creative practice, his methods of using technology to compose music, and his endless deep dive into the mercurial essence of creativity.

For the Vancouver Premiere, Gary Hustwit will create a unique cut of the film live on-stage, and the version shown at VIFF Live will never be seen again. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Gary Hustwit and special guests.

 

Supported by

Media Partner

Community Partner

              

Guest
Date

Sept 29

Time

6:00 pm

Venue

Vancouver Playhouse

18+
115 min
Q&As at VIFF
A Film First / Tigerlily Production

Book Tickets

This event has passed.
Gary Hustwit headshot

Photo by EbruYildiz

Gary Hustwit

In 2007 he made his directorial debut with Helvetica, the world’s first feature-length documentary about graphic design and typography. He has continued to explore how design affects our daily lives with his subsequent films Objectified (2009), Urbanized (2011), Workplace (2016), and Rams (2018). The films have been broadcast on PBS, BBC, HBO, Netflix and outlets in 20 countries, and have been screened in over 300 cities worldwide. He is currently working on Eno, a documentary about musician and artist Brian Eno, which uses generative technology in its creation and exhibition. Eno will be released in 2024.

Gary’s films have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the South by Southwest Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival, among others. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Helvetica, and has served on the grand juries of the Sundance Film Festival, the IFP
Gotham Awards, and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Gary was named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. He is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Read More
Brian Eno headshot

Photo by Shamil Tanna

Brian Eno

Eno’s visual experiments with light and video continue to parallel his musical career, with exhibitions and installations all over the globe. He has exhibited extensively, as far afield as St. Petersburg’s Marble Palace, Ritan Park in Beijing, Arcos de Lapa in Rio de Janeiro and the sails of the Sydney Opera House. He is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation, a trustee of Client Earth and patron of Videre est Credere. In April 2021, he launched EarthPercent, which raises money from the music industry for some of the most impactful environmental charities working on the climate emergency. In 2023, Brian was honored with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the Venice Biennale Musica.

Read More

Brian Eno will not be in attendance at this event

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

The Fugitive Kind
The Fugitive Kind film image; woman sits behind a brooding man with a guitar

The Fugitive Kind

Dir. Sidney Lumet
121 min

Sidney Lumet's movie brings together two of the greatest actors of the period, Brando and Anna Magnani, reason enough to check out this underrated poetical drama about a handsome musician who washes up in a small southern town.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Jimi James: Blues for Brando

Dir. Laszlo Benedek
140 min

The Jimi James Quintet pays tribute to the emergence of bebop, in many ways a parallel artistic innovation to Method acting. A set of bebop classics will be followed by a screening of Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Boxcutter

Dir. Reza Dahya
88 min

The first feature from former Toronto Flow OTA Live host and producer Reza Dahya is a boisterous, sometimes bruising day-in-the-life of wannabe rapper Rome (Ashton James), set on meeting megastar Richie Hill (Rich Kidd).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Wild River

Dir. Elia Kazan
112 min

Tennessee Valley Authority man Montgomery Clift finds derision from the locals, love from the war widow Lee Remick, and obduracy from matriarch Jo Van Fleet, who just won’t leave that scheduled-to-be-flooded farm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Inedia

Dir. Liz Cairns
107 min

Liz Cairns makes a mesmerizing feature debut that sees a young woman suffering from mysterious food allergies join a remote island community practicing alternative healing methods. She soon realizes that not everything is as it seems.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
Drop Dead City
Drop Dead City film image; someone holding a newspaper up in front of a brick wall

Drop Dead City

Dir. Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost
108 min

New York, 1975. The city is minutes away from bankruptcy and President Gerald Ford wants no part of it. Sanitation workers are on strike and cops are telling tourists it's not safe to visit. The town is going up in flames and they can't pay the firemen.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre