Twenty years ago this month, a little film called “Dig!,” by Ondi Timoner, won the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize in the documentary category.
The film, which took seven years to complete, followed the friendships and rivalry of two American bands — the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols — who were at the forefront of the scene that revived the ’60s psychedelic sound in the 1990s.
Timoner and her brother David, who co-produced the film, decided to digitally remaster, remix, expand and retitle it “Dig! XX” to commemorate its 20th anniversary.
It is one of the eight films from Sundance’s past that will help celebrate the festival’s 40th edition, said Festival Director and Lead Programmer Eugene Hernandez.
The other films are “Napoleon Dynamite,” “Go Fish,” “Three Seasons,” “Mississippi Masala,” “The Times of Harvey Milk,” “The Babadook” and “Pariah.”
“The 40th Edition Celebration Screenings will showcase films from Sundance’s rich history, each having made an indelible impact on culture,” Hernandez said in a statement. “In gathering some of the extraordinary artists who have been part of our history along with our community of emerging creators and audiences, we hope to demonstrate Sundance’s role as the premier place for international discovery and the vitality of independent cinema.”
The idea to bring “Dig!” back to Sundance began to sprout when Ondi Timoner ran into Hernandez at the Woodstock Film Festival last year.
Timoner’s new film, “The New Americans: Gaming a Revolution,” was there, and she was on a jury.
“I said ‘Wait, it’s your 40th and our 20th, and my brother and I are putting together a 20th anniversary edition of ‘Dig!,'” she said. “We always thought bringing it back to Sundance, bringing it home, would be the greatest celebration for our 20th anniversary.”
The original “Dig!” was narrated by Dandy Warhols’ lead songwriter, singer and guitarist Courtney Taylor, and documented his friendship with Anton Newcombe, the leader of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, according to Timoner.
“We felt back then it was appropriate, because he had the microphone to the world,” she said. “(The Dandy Warhols) were popular and Brian Jonestown was on the verge of never happening again.”
The reason why The Brian Jonestown Massacre seemed like it was going to implode was due to Newcombe’s antics, which included his all-out brawl in 1996 with guitarist Matt Hollywood, during an industry showcase at The Viper Room in Los Angeles.
That brawl was spoofed on an episode of “The Gilmore Girls,” one of other additions Timoner wanted to include in the new cut of “Dig! XX.”
“‘The Gilmore Girls’ creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was a huge ‘Dig!’ fan,” she said.
In order to make the spoof effective, Sherman-Palladion invited Joel Gion, the tambourine player and co-founder of the band, to make a cameo.
“Amy invited Joel to fly down for filming, and we thought, wouldn’t it be good to put that scene in ‘Dig! XX,'” Timoner said.
In fact, Timoner recruited Gion — whose autobiography, “In the Jingle Jangle Jungle: Keeping Time with The Brian Jonestown Massacre,” is slated to drop Feb. 27 — to add his narration to the film, which includes 40 minutes of new footage.
“Joel is a brilliant writer,” she said. “So, we thought, why not collaborate with Joel on this and let people in on what really happened. All that final narration of where they are new was a gift working with Joel, because he gave us so much latitude to really put context to stories and scenes. And we had so much fun doing it.”
Timoner said adding Joel’s voice balanced the scales, because both bands still have careers that are continuing today.
“Brian Jonestown is equally, if not more, successful than the Dandys, which wasn’t the case when we finished the original,” she said. “So, it’s quite revelatory to catch up with their careers at the end of the new film, I think.”
While reflecting about the impact the original “Dig!” had on her career, Timoner fondly remembers attending the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
“I didn’t even know what Sundance was, and I remember interviewing with The Park Record 20 years ago,” she said. “We did it in person, and I went down to the office in Park City.”
Timoner had just given birth to her son the week she finished the film, and Sundance asked her to cut 15 minutes so it could be included in the documentary competition.
“I ended up editing while breastfeeding, and got it done right before the festival,” she said with a laugh.
Some of that cut footage is part of the additional scenes in “Dig! XX,” Timoner said.
“We felt some of that material is worth seeing,” she said. “We also wanted to make this film stand on its own two legs, so we made sure we could put them in seamlessly. We wanted to make sure that you didn’t have to see the original film to enjoy this one.”