Nova '78

Aaron Brookner is an American-British writer, director, producer, and visual artist, born in New York City and based in London since 2009. He studied film at Vassar College and began his career assisting on Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes and Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity, before directing the award-winning documentary short The Black Cowboys (2004).
Brookner wrote an authorised screenplay based on the life of legendary writer Budd Schulberg and began a feature documentary with him, which remained unfinished due to Schulberg’s passing in 2009. His first feature film The Silver Goat (2012) was the first ever made exclusively for iPad and released as an app. It was downloaded in 24 countries and ranked among the top 50 entertainment apps in the UK and Czech Republic.
In 2011, he launched the recovery and restoration of the work and archive of his late uncle, director Howard Brookner. This led to the acclaimed restoration of the cult documentary Burroughs: The Movie (1983), featuring William S. Burroughs, which screened in the 2014 New York Film Festival Revivals section with Jim Jarmusch, Tom DiCillo, and James Grauerholz in attendance. The film was distributed by Janus Films and is part of the prestigious Criterion Collection.
In 2014, he created his first video installation, Double-Breasted Trench, for the William S. Burroughs centenary. His visual artworks have since been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Tallinn and the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB).
He has worked across narrative and documentary for over two decades. Selected works include directing Uncle Howard (Sundance, Berlinale), co-writing and producing Listen (Venice, 2020), and co-producing Diciannove (Venice, TIFF 2024). He leads the Howard Brookner Legacy Project. His latest release is 1986’s Robert Wilson & the CIVIL warS at Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato in 2025.