The 2024 Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown introduced the history of the Newport Folk Festival to an entirely new generation of music fans. But recreations of the 1963, 1964, and 1965 festivals were shown almost entirely from the perspective of Bob Dylan, and the film stretched historical truth well past its breaking point in quite a few scenes.
The upcoming documentary film Newport & The Great Folk Dream will correct that by presenting the event as it actually went down between 1963 and 1966, utilizing never-before-seen footage and interviews with Joan Baez, Noel “Paul” Stookey, Jim Kweskin, Taj Mahal, Judy Collins, Joe Boyd, Peter Yarrow, Maria Muldaur, and many others. The film screens on Friday at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and you can check out the trailer right here.
Newport & The Great Folk Dream was directed by Robert Gordon, whose previous films include Muddy Waters: Can’t Be Satisfied, Johnny Cash’s America, and Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan: ‘Cowboy’ Jack Clement’s Home Movies.
“The footage over these four years, 1963-1966, documents how fast changes occur,” Gordon says in a statement. “We’re living through radical change now, and we hope this movie inspires more music, more understanding, more courage. It was an honor to curate these artists — and a very difficult task. Bob Dylan goes electric, Phil Ochs leaps to the present, and Mississippi John Hurt makes time stand still. Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul & Mary evolve before our eyes. The film is rife with surprises — and unusual sounds.”
Much of the footage from the Newport Folk Festival was captured by filmmaker Murray Lerner, and it appeared in his pivotal 1967 documentary Festival. In 2007, Lerner created The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival. It was built around his archive of Dylan footage from the events.
Newport & The Great Folk Dream takes a much broader look at the festival by showing footage of Judy Collins, Elizabeth Botton, John Lee Hooker, Peter, Paul & Mary, Dave Van Ronk, Pete Seeger, the Chambers Brothers, and many others. “At the Newport Folk Festival, people who would not ordinarily encounter each other had the chance to develop bonds,” Gordon says. “he festival was in the living folk tradition, elders sharing songs and technique, the youth innovating and pushing the envelope. Freedom songs rang out alongside work songs, a player on homemade pan pipes mesmerized listeners alongside the generation’s greatest future singer-songwriters. The timeliness — and timelessness — is astonishing.”
The Newport Folk Festival went on hiatus in 1969, but returned as an annual event in 1985. The 2025 show featured performances by Geese, Goose, Jeff Tweedy, Jack Antonoff and Bleachers, Margo Price, Kenny Loggins, Jesse Welles, Public Enemy, and Luke Combs.
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