Kurt Vonnegut would’ve turned 98 this week, and IFC Films picked up a birthday present on his behalf — the rights to the forthcoming documentary, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time.
The doc, co-directed by Curb Your Enthusiasm director Robert B. Weide, is expected to premiere next summer, Variety reported. The deal was announced Wednesday — Vonnegut’s birthday — and was accompanied by a teaser trailer featuring audio from a voicemail the late author once left for Weide.
“When I first approached Vonnegut to authorize this film in 1982, I envisioned a fairly conventional author documentary,” Weide told Variety. “As the decades rolled by, fate stepped in, and what I wound up with was far from conventional.”
According to Weide, his friendship with Vonnegut continued to grow throughout the project, with co-director Don Argott eventually joining the team “to document the meta element of this story,” while Weide “continued to focus on Vonnegut’s biography.”
The final project is what Weide has called a “hybrid” of the two filmmakers’ strengths, following Vonnegut’s life from his childhood in Indianapolis to his death in 2007. Weide began shooting footage of Vonnegut for the film in 1988, but the doc will also cover the writer’s earlier life, including his experience as a Prisoner of War in World War II and his years as a struggling writer prior to the success of 1969’s Slaughterhouse-Five, from which the film gets its title.
“IFC Films has a proud history of supporting long-evolving film projects and we are thrilled to partner with Bob Weide on this 40-year journey of documenting the legacy of Kurt Vonnegut,” said IFC Films’ Arianna Bocco. “The portrait that Bob and Don have created is an unparalleled look at an icon who has shaped modern culture and we are honored to bring that rare glimpse to audiences across the country.”
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