Director Christopher Nolan (Interstellar) has a new movie premiering this month at Film Forum in New York City, yet this one is absent of any superheroes, wormholes, or inceptors. Instead, Nolan has focused his filmmaking efforts to make a short documentary on acclaimed stop-motion animators Stephen and Timothy Quay (Street of Crocodiles).
The documentary, which premieres August 19, follows the the Quay brothers, who have been making animated shorts since the 1980s as well as many music videos since the 1990s. Nolan’s documentary will focus on the team’s process in shaping the dark and decayed worlds of their films. Nolan is also curating and funding restorations of their work. The restored films will run from August 19 to August 25.
It certainly makes sense that Nolan would place such a vested interest in the filmmakers, as Nolan makes it a point to use practical effects in many of his films. Inception‘s famous rotating hotel hall sequence was made using an actual rotating set, and Nolan reportedly made a point to avoid CGI whenever possible in Interstellar.
It’s also not uncommon for directors to follow up grand productions with smaller work. In between two Avengers films, director Joss Whedon (The Avengers: Age of Ultron) shot a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Since 2005, Nolan’s filmography includes The Dark Knight trilogy, The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar.
Nolan doesn’t have any known directorial projects on the horizon but he is an executive producer on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.