One of the great music documentaries of all-time has received new life. For its 20th anniversary, Ondi Timoner’s DIG! has received a remastered and enhanced version with DIG! XX, which premiered earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival. Following rival psych-rock bands the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols over a tumultuous eight years, Oscilloscope Laboratories has now announced the North American release, set for January 17, 2025, and debuted a new trailer.
DIG! XX is a remastered, enhanced remix of the original cult classic. Edited from the original 2,500 hours of footage by David Timoner, who produced and shot the original DIG! alongside his sister, Ondi, this version adds nearly 40 minutes of previously-unseen footage, offering nuance and context to the chaotic journey and love-hate relationships of the musicians featured, and bringing the iconic story up to current day. It also includes new narration from the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Joel Gion, balancing the point-of-view expressed by Dandy Warhols’ frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor in the original narration.
Ondi and David say, “For our cult classic’s 20th birthday, we wanted to offer fans and the next generation more than a traditional anniversary extended/remastered cut – we wanted to give DIG! fans a deeper, reimagined version – which remixes the original film with many new and outrageous scenes, plus a revelatory new narration from inside the opposing band to balance the scales – and a shocking ending which brings our story up to present day.”
“Music is in O-Scope’s DNA,” says company President Dan Berger, “but we’re also picky as fuck. So imagine our delight to know that we’re able to bring what is undeniably one of the best and most important music docs of all time to new and old audiences alike. It’s exceptionally rare to want a documentary to be 40 minutes longer, but Ondi and David’s new vision is truly a wonderful evolution and brilliant counterpiece to the original DIG!”
