HOWL

In 1956, Allen Ginsberg published his landmark collection "Howl Αnd Other Poems". Needless to say, the work's frank references to straight and gay sex didn't sit very well with the ultra-conservatives of the time, and shortly after the book's publication, both Ginsberg and his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti were brought to trial for obscenity. In "Howl", the Academy Award winning directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman revisit the life of the great American poet, author and Beat Generation icon, starting off from his youth, his acceptance of his homosexuality, his drug abuse and culminating in the obscenity trial that proved to have far-reaching consequences for freedom of speech and artistic expression in America. In the last part of the film, "Howl", one of the most important works of contemporary American literature, is revived in images drawn by Ginsberg's illustrator Eric Drooker.