NYFF58 Spotlight selection Hopper/Welles and Currents selection The Tango of the Widower and Its Distorting Mirror share a spectral connection: they’re both dispatches from beyond the graves of legendary auteurs, respectively, Orson Welles and Raúl Ruiz. This lively discussion, moderated by FLC Assistant Programmer Dan Sullivan, brought together the resurrectors of both films—director Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski in the case of Hopper/Welles; filmmaker (and Ruiz’s widow) Valeria Sarmiento, editor Galut Alarcón, and producer Chamila Rodríguez in the case of The Tango of the Widower—to chat about the unique artistic and logistical process of fashioning a completed film out of the fragments left behind by an iconic filmmaker.

Rymsza and Murawski reflected on their journey from 2018’s The Other Side of the Wind to Hopper/Welles, while Sarmiento spoke of Ruiz’s admiration for Welles and revealed that she, Alarcón, and Rodríguez are reconstructing another unfinished film of Ruiz’s: a satire titled Realismo Socialista. The audience Q&A involved a surprise appearance — by the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum!

Watch the conversation below, presented by HBO.