Visions, Dreams and Magic: The Unmade Films of Michael Powell
Directed by Nic Wassell2024 41mDocumentary, Short
7.5
Following the release of his ground-breaking (and at the time, controversial) film Peeping Tom in 1960, the once-esteemed British filmmaker Michael Powell would subsequently struggle to get his films made. In this documentary, filmmaker Nic Wassell talks to Powell experts and his widow, Academy Award-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker, about the unmade projects from this period most dear to the director. These include a pioneering TV anthology, an epic adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea and Powell's longed-for version of The Tempest. All came close to production, but never made it to our screens. Still, Powell never gave up hope that his dreams would become cinema. As Schoonmaker says, he asked that his gravestone read: "Filmmaker and optimist".
