Dennis Hopper’s Final Movie Needs Your Help

By  · Published on March 11th, 2015

Linda Yellen

It’s been almost five years since the passing of Dennis Hopper, but his work in this world is still undone. Literally. Two of his movies are stamped with 2015 being their year of release, according to IMDb. One is actually by Orson Welles, a meta mockumentary titled The Other Side of the Wind, which was shot throughout the 1970s and is finally going to be completed and screened in time for the 100th anniversary of Welles’s birth on May 6th. The other is a more recent effort called The Last Film Festival, clearly a nod to the Hopper-helmed The Last Movie. Shot in early 2009 before Hopper was diagnosed with cancer, the comedy is now expecting an official release in October.

First it has to be finished, and so director Linda Yellen has launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking $90k to do so. When Hopper died, the crowd-funding site was only a year old and probably not known by the actor. Back then, according to Yellen, there could have been some easy money for the project, but only if it was rushed in order to capitalize on Hopper’s death. Now it’s still being sold on the fact that he’s dead and this is his last movie, but there’s a difference. Now it’s in his honor and in the hands of his fans, not people looking to morbidly cash in.

The Last Film Festival has appeal for fans of movies about movies, too. Hopper plays a producer on such hard times that his latest project has been rejected by every film fest except the tiny O’Hi, which is held in a small town not used to the ways of Hollywood bigwigs. It sounds like State and Main but on the post-production side (the title also reminds of the 1982 Cannes-set slasher flick The Last Horror Film). And there are a number of other fairly big names on screen, including Jacqueline Bisset, JoBeth Williams, Joseph Cross, Leelee Sobieski, Katrina Bowden, Donnell Rawlings and Chris Kattan.

Watch the campaign video below and contribute if you wish. Otherwise, you can hopefully still see a finally finished The Last Film Festival this fall.

Christopher Campbell began writing film criticism and covering film festivals for a zine called Read, back when a zine could actually get you Sundance press credentials. He's now a Senior Editor at FSR and the founding editor of our sister site Nonfics. He also regularly contributes to Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and is the President of the Critics Choice Association's Documentary Branch.