Sometimes the footage is the thing. Nova ’78 represents the completion of an observational documentary by the late Beat-adjacent filmmaker Howard Brookner, perhaps best known for his 1983 film about William S. Burroughs. Howard’s nephew, Aaron Brookner, found the unedited footage and shaped it into a perfect time capsule of a very particular moment in NYC underground culture.
The Nova Convention in 1978 was a multimedia event held at the Entermedia Theater, which now houses the Village East Cinema. The long weekend was centered on Burroughs and his work, and featured performances by a who’s who of late-‘70s avant-garde culture: Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Philip Glass, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, and several poets from the downtown Dial-a-Poem scene, including John Giorno, Ed Sanders, and Anne Waldman.
Most people haven’t seen these performances before, but some have probably heard them. Giorno’s record label issued an LP entitled You’re a Hook, which included many of the music and poetry performances from the Nova Convention. Those familiar with that record will notice certain editorial decisions Brookner and co-director Rodrigo Areias have made, shortening some performances (especially Zappa’s) and lengthening others. Some of the acts, like Cunningham/Cage and a brief work by performance artist Julia Heyward, were absent from the recording, since they were largely dependent on visual information. But what’s most interesting about Nova ’78 is the portrait it offers of Burroughs himself.
The writer of Naked Lunch has long represented a specifically masculinist corner of mid-century experimentalism, one that can lapse into misogyny very quickly. His infamous “William Tell” act, in which Burroughs shot his wife Joan Vollmer, to death, is perhaps the most concrete example of this unseemly queer conservatism. But what we see in this film is something quite different. Of course Burroughs’ fascination with guns is on display, and during his performance as Dr. Benway, he exhibits his fascination/repulsion with the female body. (Jackie Curtis is alongside him, amplifying the joke.)
But he is also gracious and surprisingly unguarded in this footage. And he makes what can only be described as strong statements in favor of progressive politics. The conference happened to coincide with the campaign for Proposition 6 in California, AKA the Briggs Initiative, that sought to ban gay and lesbian teachers from the classroom. Burroughs speaks out on the proposition, noting that Briggs and his sort are only starting out by targeting the queer community, and will soon move onto Blacks and Jews — as Briggs himself said, he’s after “the whole tamale.”
Burroughs is also seen chatting with Allen Ginsburg, Brion Gysin, and others about the impending revolution in Iran, noting that while the Shah may not have been a terrific guy, the Shiite fundamentalists poised to take over are much worse. Burroughs enfolds this narrative into his prepared statement on Prop 6, observing that religious fundamentalists, not homosexuals, are the true threat to life on earth and should be banned from public life.
These remarks allow us to see another side of Burroughs, although one may wonder whether Areias and Brookner included certain viewpoints, perhaps omitting others, to proffer an image of the man that would be useful for 2025. Without access to the raw footage, there’s no way to know. Regardless, Nova ’78 is an invaluable record of (as Guy Debord put it) the passage of a few people through a relatively short period of time.
Published as part of Cinéma du Réel 2026 — Dispatch 1.
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