Murray Lerner’s 1960s Newport Folk Festival footage comes alive in Newport & the Great Folk Dream, capturing music, protest, and cultural change. Over 80 hours of Lerner’s original 16mm footage has now been remastered in 4K.

Before the era of Coachella and Woodstock, the Newport Folk Festival provided a stage where a generation found its voice and helped reshape American culture. From 1963 to 1966, the festival hosted legends like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, and Bessie Jones. Newport & the Great Folk Dream captures this electrifying period, where traditional songs met bold innovation, freedom anthems blended with work songs, and the air was charged with the energy of protest and social change.

Using rare and previously unseen archival footage, Newport & the Great Folk Dream is both a vibrant musical journey and a reflection on art’s transformative power. It showcases a living folk tradition, with elder musicians mentoring younger performers and audiences forming unexpected connections across race, class, and geography. Documenting four pivotal years, including Dylan’s controversial electric performance (depicted in last year’s A Complete Unknown), the film demonstrates how music can reveal struggle, inspire courage, and sustain the spirit of democracy.

It was only a matter of time before another documentary revisited the Newport Folk Festival. Not because this year marks the 20th anniversary of Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, but because A Complete Unknown put Dylan back in the spotlight. That biopic sent me seeking out Scorsese’s documentary, Murray Lerner’s Festival, The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963–1965, and D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back. At Netflix’s karaoke party last night at TIFF, the first thing I did was see if “Like a Rolling Stone” was available. It was either that or The Beatles’ equally epic “Hey Jude.”

The 1960s were a very different time. Less than two decades after World War II, America was already embroiled in the Vietnam War, which escalated under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, fueling the rise of protest music—a surge captured brilliantly in Newport & the Great Folk Dream. Decades later, we live in another turbulent period. Today, a racist convicted felon continues to attack democracy, leaning on acts of authoritarianism that echo the struggles of the 1960s.

Americans fought for civil and voting rights then; today, those rights are under threat. Transgender Americans like me are being denationalized and dehumanized. Meanwhile, Conservative Southern politicians are making it harder for Black Americans to vote, compounded by gerrymandering in Texas, Missouri, and elsewhere, all to secure a rubber-stamp Congress that is actively ceding away their constitutional authority to a fascist executive branch. But I digress. The songs in Newport & the Great Folk Dream feel just as vital today. Dylan’s electric set might be controversial, but you can’t tell the Newport story without it.

What made the Newport Folk Festival remarkable—and what Newport & the Great Folk Dream makes clear—is how it brought generations of artists together. While Dylan teaming up with Joan Baez wasn’t unusual, Newport allowed for one-off collaborations, sometimes the only time artists shared a stage in their careers. The 1960s were changing rapidly, and Lerner’s camera team captured it all in real time, preserving moments that might otherwise have been lost.

There’s a saying: all art is political. Music, like film, often reflects society. Newport & the Great Folk Dream celebrates diversity—performers from different backgrounds, races, and traditions sharing songs that conveyed freedom, labor, and hope. That diversity is essential for democracy to succeed, just as it was in the 1960s. Whether freedom songs or work songs, the music endures, a reminder of both struggle and possibility. These are songs that will continue to resonate as long as we have a planet to sing them on.

DIRECTOR: Robert Gordon
FEATURING: Joan Baez, Joe Boyd, Candie Carawan, Lester Chambers, John Cohen, Judy Collins, Peter Curley, Bob Dylan, Linda Fannin, Bettie Mae Fikes, Rutha Harris, Bruce Jackson, Bob Jones, Jim Kweskin, Murray Lerner, Taj Mahal, Maria Muldaur, Charles Neblett, Odetta, Gene Rosenthal, Buffy Sainte-Marie, John Sebastian, Pete Seeger, Dick Spottswood, Noel “Paul” Stookey, Elene Stovall, Mary Travers, Loudon Wainwright III, Dick Waterman, Jackie Washington Landron, George Wein, Peter Yarrow

Newport & The Great Folk Dream holds its world premiere during the 2025 Venice International Film Festival. Grade: 5/5

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