from executive producer
F R A N C I S F O R D C O P P O L A
“What Brother Verses Brother manages to put on screen is nothing like any film I’ve seen in recent years, or perhaps ever.” … “A ninety-minute single-take musical that does more to levitate the spirits of the viewer than a hundred Wickeds ever could.” … “Rarely do I feel privileged to have seen a film, but after watching Brother Verses Brother… I am honored.” - Screen Anarchy
“Brother Verses Brother is about those nights we all have when everything seems a little heightened, when we argue a little more vehemently and love a little stronger, when memories of our childhood fuel visions of our future. It’s a sweet, smart movie that’s not only unlike anything I saw at SXSW this year, but anything I’ll see anywhere all year.” - Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
GRACK FILMS presents
THE BROTHERS GOLD
in a
LIVE CINEMA
MUSICAL NOVELLA
Improvised in real time. This is Live Cinema.
The radically personal one-shot musical odyssey of combative twin musicians hunting the streets of San Francisco for their dying poet father.
Inspired by Francis Coppola's concept of Live Cinema, Brother Verses Brother is a radically personal musical odyssey from acclaimed filmmaker Ari Gold and songwriter Ethan Gold. The story of combative twin musicians hunting the streets of San Francisco for their dying poet father, it is improvised by the director’s own family, and plays in a single unbroken shot.
Made in the tradition of intimate stories like Once, Before Midnight, and A Real Pain, Brother Verses Brother is a funny and moving testament to the power of music, the bonds of brotherhood, and the life of a city - experienced by the viewer in real-time.
Brother Verses Brother is also a rare vision of American culture, taking the audience on a safari through the secret haunts of Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg - and co-starring the last Beat poet on earth, 99-year-old Herbert Gold, in a role performed only weeks before his death.
The companion book, Father Verses Sons, was a recent selection of Scribner’s Best American Poetry. A companion film, Helicopter, which features Alejandro Jodorowsky and expands on Ari’s student-Oscar winning short film about his mother’s death, will be completed in late 2025.
Brother Verses Brother features original music by The Brothers Gold, and co-stars local jazz legend Lara Louise, Brian Bell (of the band Weezer), & San Francisco’s Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin. Sound was mixed by Jim McKee at American Zoetrope; songs by Tony Hoffer (Air, Beck, Belle & Sebastian).
