A director’s cut of an unsung vampire cult classic is returning to theaters, and IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer on the birthday of one of the film‘s executive producers (and brief stars): David Lynch.
A new 4K restoration of Michael Almereyda’s “Nadja” from 1994 will debut this February, bringing the “Tesla” and “Experimenter” filmmaker’s black-and-white “deadpan noir” (Roger Ebert’s words) back to audiences.
The film stars Elina Löwensohn, Suzy Amis, Martin Donovan, Galaxy Craze, Peter Fonda, Karl Geary, and Jared Harris, and if you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s the official synopsis: “Merging elements from ‘Dracula’s Daughter’ (1936) with André Breton’s surrealist novel ‘Nadja'(1928), and fusing shimmering black-and-white 35mm with hallucinatory Pixelvision video, Michael Almereyda’s (‘Tesla,’ ‘Experimenter,’ ‘Hamlet’) acclaimed cult film centers on New York-based vampire Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) as she draws close to her twin brother Edgar (Jared Harris) following their father’s death at the hands of Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Fonda). Edgar’s private nurse (Suzy Amis), Van Helsing’s nephew Jim (Martin Donovan), and Jim’s wife (Galaxy Craze) are entangled in the story as the vampire killer pursues ‘the fiend’ from Manhattan to Transylvania.”
The film was shot in black-and-white as a cost-saving measure, and after funding cratered, Lynch stepped in to finance the movie himself. Lynch encouraged Almereyda to direct the project after an earlier Edgar Allan Poe script became too difficult to make.
“David and Mary understood that the movie, following Breton’s lead, was intended as a kind of collage, in the tradition of a surrealist exquisite corpse, though we were equally indebted to Roger Corman, shooting fast and cheap and fitting the story into just a few locations. Low as the budget was, investors faded out when we lost a particular cast member a few weeks away from our start date, and David bravely decided to pay for the film out of his own pocket — an act of generosity that still startles me,” the director said in the press notes.
A Grasshopper Film and Arbelos Films release, the restoration of “Nadja” premieres at BAM in Brooklyn on February 6.
The original director’s cut was digitally restored by Arbelos and Grasshopper Film from the 35mm print that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1994, which is three minutes longer than the commercial release. Laboratory services were done by OCN Labs, Five Seventy Films, Ben Gilbert Films, David Ferron, and Blackhawk Films.
Celebrate more Lynch by checking out IndieWire’s ranking of his film and TV projects here.
