With all the talk of whether or not the highly-publicized Woodstock 50 event will actually take place this summer, it’s easy to forget that the original 1969 music festival is still a pretty interesting topic amongst American historians and music fans. Earlier this week, the latest documentary on the original Woodstock premiered as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, and is scheduled for a wide release later on this year.
Titled, Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation, the new documentary directed by Barak Goodman is the latest attempt at taking fans back to the late-1960s with an in-depth look at the event that helped define the youth culture of the era, in addition to changing the future of American entertainment in the decades to follow.
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The film’s synopsis reads as the following,
“Structured faithfully around audio testimony from attendees, ‘Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation’ focuses not just on how it all came to be, despite enormous challenges, but how it felt for it to happen: an endless traffic backup was elevated to a communal experience, and a food shortage became a collaboration rather than a disaster. The incredible performances spotlighted in the film, from Jimi Hendrix to Joan Baez to Crosby, Stills, and Nash—form the backdrop to what is fundamentally the audience’s story. Woodstock takes us all back to a time and a place now captured in a time capsule, but also reminds us of the immediacy that love, music and shared experience can elicit.”
The film mixes archival and home-shot video footage in addition to audio interviews from fans who were at the 1969 festival. The film also documents the role that the festival played within society at large in America, which at the time, was deeply troubled and divided with the then-ongoing Vietnam War. Fans can watch the film’s official trailer below.
Woodstock: Three Days That Defined A Generation – Official Trailer
[Video: PBS Distribution]
The film is set to screen again at the Regal Cinemas Battery Park this Saturday, May 4th, beginning at 2:30 p.m. For fans outside of New York City who can’t make it, the film will arrive in select theaters across the country throughout May and June. The documentary is also set for a wide television release when it debuts on PBS on Tuesday, August 6th, at 9:00 p.m. ET, as part of the network’s “American Experience” series. Fans can reference the schedule below for the full listing of upcoming theatrical screenings.
[H/T Brooklyn Vegan]