Picturehouse Takes 'Brother Verses Brother' Into Awards Season

Picturehouse will release Ari Gold's one-shot musical Brother Verses Brother for awards consideration this season, with a theatrical opening set for early next year and an Oscar campaign already moving on one song.

The film, executive produced by five-time Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola, is a family odyssey shot in a single take through the streets of San Francisco. It follows twin musicians Ari and Ethan Gold as they search the city for love, a gig and their dying poet father. The journey runs from Kerouac Alley through the cafés of the Beats and into the night, as the brothers try to finish a new song to play for their father — until Ethan reworks it for the separation they know is coming.

What's on the Oscar ballot?

Ethan Gold's song "Brothers Keep Goin' Anyway" has been submitted for Best Original Song consideration. The songs are performed live on camera as the night unfolds, a mechanic that will matter to music-branch voters deciding whether a live-captured performance qualifies as original enough for the category.

The story, conceived by Ari Gold, is improvised by the director's own family and friends, including his real father. That father is literary icon Herbert Gold, one of the last of the Beats, who at age 99 took his first and final screen role. He died eight weeks after filming.

What did the filmmakers say?

"Ari and Ethan have created a completely original film with music that fills your heart and makes you long for San Francisco," Picturehouse CEO Bob Berney said. "We will jump into the awards season immediately with special event screenings and performances and will open the film theatrically early next year."

Ari Gold framed the no-cuts format as a creative necessity. "I wanted to make a film about the difficulty of ungluing ourselves from people we love, so an improvisation without cuts was the way," he said. "Our dad agreed to act at age 99, and we discovered that his presence inspires people to bring their own families to the cinema. Bob Berney has spent his career bringing personal films to big audiences, and I can't think of a better home for our story."

Ethan Gold explained the song's strange origin. "I initially wrote 'Brothers Keep Goin' Anyway' as a ballad for lonely men who don't know how to love women," he said. "It's for my father and his brothers, and for my brother and myself, about relationships which nurture and curse us. In the film I want my brother Ari to sing it with me to our Dad, but Ari never rehearses, so I change the words and sing it alone as an anthem of freedom for us both, to honor and love each other while breaking our toxic bond."

Who else is in it?

The cast rounds out with:

• Lara Louise
• Brian Bell of Weezer
• former San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin
• Herbert Gold, in his first and final screen role

What does it change in the race?

The film draws on Coppola's concept of "Live Cinema," a live-improvised approach that gives the campaign a ready-made hook for special-event screenings with live performances. Michelle Stratton, Starr Sutherland, Ari Gold and Scott Feinstein produce; Coppola executive produces. It is a Grack Films production in association with Atypical Project.

A one-shot musical, a 99-year-old first-time actor, and a song performed live on camera. That is a lot of awards narrative for one small film. Picturehouse, which has run such campaigns before, evidently agrees.