Filmmaker Yony Leyser’s documentary, “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within,” gets a theatrical release from New York-based Oscilloscope Laboratories this fall and a broadcast on PBS’ “Independent Lens” this spring.
“A Man Within” is the first posthumous feature documentary about Burroughs, the Beat writer of such groundbreaking mid-20th Century novels as “Junky,” “Queer,” and “Naked Lunch.”
Josh Braun of New York-based Submarine Entertainment, which represents “A Man Within,” negotiated the deal with Oscilloscope and “Independent Lens.”
“I didn’t anticipate that it would feel like the definitive Burroughs documentary, but it really does,” Braun says. “I don’t think there’s anything that will portray him more accurately or more completely.”
Submarine signed as film rep last December, weeks before its world premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah and Oscilloscope was one of a handful of distributors interested in releasing “A Man Within” theatrically.
After seeing the film, “We were not disappointed,” says Oscilloscope executive David Fenkel, who made the deal with Braun. “It’s not only an informative piece about Burroughs’s life, his work and his place in the Beat generation, but it’s really entertaining.”
