Visionary director Terrence Malick’s documentary Voyage of Time is taking a leap forward, nearing distribution for a film now thirty years in the making. Visual effects artist, Dan Glass (The Matrix Trilogy) has been working on this documentary with Malick since the 1970s. Voyage of Time is reportedly nearing an IMAX deal to show a 40 minute version of the film, and is being shopped at the Cannes Film Festival, which begins tomorrow, for distribution of a lengthier version. Both iterations of the doc are expected in 2016.

The film will span the birth of the universe to its final days. If it’s anything like Malick’s past films, we can expect to see minute aspects of life manipulated into highly symbolic imagery. The Tree of Life, which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 2012, has a fairly lengthy sequence to itself which recounts the beginning of the universe until the time of man. It will be interesting to see what Malick does with an even broader palette.

Following his Oscar-nominated The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick disappeared (this following a much lengthier departure between1978’s Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line), but has made quite the comeback, with The New World (2005), The Tree of Life (2011), To the Wonder (2012), and a film starring Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, and Cate Blanchett currently in post-production, Knight of Cups (2014).

The star of The Tree of Life, Brad Pitt, will be one of the producers of the documentary, and may act as the film’s narrator.

According to Variety, Vincent Maravel, co-founder of Wild Bunch (who is representing the film) described it as “a project we have been tracking for years and we are passionate about. This is a classic for the future generations, Malick’s legacy to humanity.”