Coming down from his carefree youth and unwanted fame, Jack Kerouac undertakes a mature confrontation of some of his most troubling emotional issues: a burgeoning problem with alcoholism, addiction, fear, and insecurity. He dutifully records his ever-changing states of consciousness, which culminate in a powerful religious experience. Big Sur was written some time after Jack Kerouac's best-known works, following a visit to northern California and...

Years before the Beats arrived in San Francisco, the city exploded with artistic expressions: painting, theatre, film, poetry. At its center was the groundbreaking filmmaker and poet James Broughton. Big Joyexplores Broughton's passionate embrace of a life of pansexual transcendence and a fiercely independent mantra: 'follow your own weird.' His remarkable story spans the post-war San Francisco Renaissance, his influence on the Beat generation, escape...

1957, Paris. A cheap no-name hotel becomes a haven for a new breed of artists struggling to free themselves from the conformity and censorship of America. Called the Beat hotel, it soon became an epicenter of the beat generation. This revelatory new documentary delves deep into this amazing place and time. Fleeing the obscenity trials surrounding the publication of Howl, Allen Ginsberg, along with Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso, happened upon the...

Visionary, radical, spiritual seeker, renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human rights, Buddhist, political activist and teacher – Allen Ginsberg’s remarkable life shaped the very soul of American counterculture. For 25 years, Academy Award®-nominated director Jerry Aronson accumulated more than 60 hours of film on Allen Ginsberg, resulting in this comprehensive portrait of one of America’s greatest poets,...