Film Forum

Maverick recording artist Brian Eno co-founded Roxy Music, produced breakthrough albums for David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, and U2, and pioneered innovative work in ambient music. A renowned explorer of technology and “oblique strategies,” he is an unlikely subject for a conventional documentary; but in this first-of-its-kind portrait, Gary Hustwit (HELVETICA, RAMS) applies Eno’s own concept of “generative” art: the filmmaker’s proprietary technology, developed with digital artist Brendan Dawes, produces a different movie every time it’s screened, presenting variations in sequence, music, and scenes (including some with such collaborators as Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, David Bowie, U2, and others). Film Forum will present a unique version of the film each day during the initial two-week run; these versions will never be shown again.

Defying the hagiographic impulses of the music doc genre, ENO draws from original interviews and the artist’s own staggering archive of never-before-seen footage and unreleased music.

Presented with support from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund

2024     APPROX. 90 MIN.     USA     FILM FIRST

Trailer

Reviews

“GROUNDBREAKING. Remixes the music doc.”
– David Fear, Rolling Stone

“A template for how cinema can be re-defined in the digital age.”
– Daniel Dylan Wray, The Quietus

“A documentary that mirrors the spirit of Eno’s music in its very form. ENO is sleek, seamless, and compelling… The documentary uses [Eno’s] observations to fuse his past and present, his evolving images and shifting roles, in a way that accentuates their musical and spiritual continuity…There has long been an aura of enigma surrounding Brian Eno, and one of the film’s delights is that he turns out to be a brainy but also quite funny and grounded middle-class British chap who has great stories to tell.”
– Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“A perfect blend of form and content…It may be simply called ENO but there’s nothing simple about Gary Hustwit’s experimental film, a documentary that generates itself anew every time it screens… Brian Eno is a genius who was unencumbered by traditional music production. Why make a traditional documentary about him?”
– Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com

“A clever documentary shaped by [Eno’s] own innovations… The one constant—and what makes the movie worth seeing—is the man himself. Charming, smart, sensitive, genial, and exuding an almost childlike passion for and profound (though never pretentious) questioning of the musical art-form, Eno makes for great company.”
– Anthony Kaufman, Screen Daily