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(We are planning to bring the film back to the MV Film Center after August 8th — check back for dates)
The film will be preceded by a short welcome by the co-directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine and a Q&A post-screening with Music Director, Rachel Fox.
HALLELUJAH: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song is a definitive exploration of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen as seen through the prism of his internationally renowned hymn, “Hallelujah.” This feature-length documentary weaves together three creative strands: The songwriter and his times; the song’s dramatic journey from record label reject to chart-topping hit; and moving testimonies from major recording artists for whom “Hallelujah” has become a personal touchstone. Approved for production by Leonard Cohen just before his 80th birthday in 2014, the film accesses a wealth of never-before-seen archival materials from the Cohen Trust including Cohen’s personal notebooks, journals and photographs, performance footage, and extremely rare audio recordings and interviews.
“Hallelujah” serves as a metaphor for Cohen’s life.” – Rolling Stone
“The co-directors, Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, wisely focus on the genesis of Cohen’s most celebrated and performed song, “Hallelujah.” – Christian Science Monitor
Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine of Geller/Goldfine Productions
For over thirty years, Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have produced and directed critically acclaimed multi-character documentary narratives that braid their characters’ individual personal stories to form a larger portrait of the human experience. Geller and Goldfine’s latest feature is HALLELUJAH: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, which debuted in September 2021 at both the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals and is slated for worldwide theatrical release via Sony Pictures Classics in summer 2022. HALLELUJAH is a definitive exploration of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen as seen through the prism of his internationally renowned hymn. The documentary weaves together three creative strands: The songwriter and his times; the song’s dramatic journey from record label reject to chart-topping hit; and moving testimonies from major recording artists for whom “Hallelujah” has become a personal touchstone. Approved for production by Leonard Cohen just before his 80th birthday in 2014, the film accesses a wealth of never-before-seen archival materials from the Cohen Trust including Cohen’s personal notebooks, journals and photographs, performance footage, and extremely rare audio recordings and interviews.
Geller and Goldfine have also collaborated on: The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (2013), Darwin meets Hitchcock murder-mystery that had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and its European premiere in Berlin; Something Ventured (2011), which premiered at SXSW and went on to play festivals and screen internationally; Ballets Russes (2005) which was recognized as one of the top five documentaries of 2005 by both the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review and appeared on a dozen critical “10 Best Films” lists, including those of Time Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter, the San Francisco Chronicle and Slate; Now and Then: From Frosh to Seniors, which premiered theatrically in October 1999 and aired on PBS in October 2000 as the lead program of the Independent Lens series; Kids of Survival: The Art and Life of Tim Rollins + K.O.S. (1996), a feature-length documentary about the South Bronx-based art group Tim Rollins & K.O.S., which aired on Cinemax in September 1998 and was the recipient of two national Emmy Awards; FROSH: Nine Months in a Freshman Dorm (1994); and, the award winning Isadora Duncan: Movement from the Soul (1988).
Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine were admitted to the Documentary Branch of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2014.
RACHEL FOX, Music Supervisor
After working for years as an entertainment lawyer in law firms and at an independent film
company, Rachel left the full-time practice of law in the early aughts to collaborate with music
producer Hal Willner, renowned for his multi-artist concept albums and live shows, including the
series “Came So Far for Beauty: the Songs of Leonard Cohen”, performances from which
served as the soundtrack for an earlier Leonard Cohen documentary. Hal was the sketch music
producer for SNL for three decades and produced film scores for directors ranging from Robert
Altman and Wim Wenders to Adam McKay and Martin Scorcese. Rachel and Hal worked
together with a wide variety of artists, including Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Keith Richards, Lucinda
Williams, Bill Frisell, Laurie Anderson, Nick Cave, Tim Robbins, John C. Reilly and U2. Rachel
has worked with and without Hal as the music supervisor on numerous films. She uses the
negotiating skills she honed as a music lawyer to secure affordable rates for newly-composed
and preexisting music, allowing directors to use music that might otherwise be beyond the reach
of their films’ budgets.
Rachel began working on “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song” in the spring of
2015, when the directors, Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller, engaged her to clear the rights to the
song “Hallelujah” after they had failed to obtain a price that would enable them to make the film.
Diverging from the original plan, the film contains a lot of other music, including songs by Bob
Dylan and The Velvet Underground.
Rachel is a seasonal resident of Chilmark. She first came to the Vineyard 2 years before the
Black Dog Tavern opened.
