Todd Haynes Is Making His First Documentary About the Velvet Underground

Fifty years after the release of Velvet Underground & Nico, one of the most influential rock albums in history, lauded indie director Todd Haynes (Carol, Far From Heaven) has announced he’ll be making his first feature documentary about the band.

Variety reports out of the Locarno Film Festival that Haynes announced his Velvet Underground documentary at the fest, and will be teaming with longtime producing partner Christine Vachon of Killer Films, as well as David Blackman and Universal Music Group for his first doc. Per Variety,

Haynes’ new project, currently untitled and in development, will “rely certainly on [Andy] Warhol films but also a rich culture of experimental film, a vernacular we have lost and we don’t have, [and that] we increasingly get further removed from,” he said.

It will also be “challenging” given there is so little documentation on the group, the director added. So he is looking forward to “the thrill of the research and visual assemblage” and “getting in deep to the resources and material and stock and archival footage and the actual cinema and experimental work.”

Haynes’ projects have traditionally focused on people who break molds, who refuse to live inside society’s structure, so Lou, John, Sterling, and Angus will fit right in with the rest of Haynes’ characters. “As Brian Eno said, everybody who bought [Velvet Underground & Nico] started a band,” Haynes noted during his announcement.

Variety also mentions that Haynes is working on another project for Amazon about “an intensely important figure of immense historical and cultural influence.”