About the Experience: Screening | Along for the Ride is a documentary film about Actor/Director/Artist Dennis Hopper. Changing the Hollywood studio system forever, Hopper remained dormant for years after his obscure directorial follow up to Easy Rider, called The Last Movie caused his blacklisting.

Told through the eyes of his idiosyncratic ‘right hand man’ Satya de la Manitou and featuring a score by Gemma Thompson of Savages the film was an Official Selection of the Venice Film Festival. Along for the Ride was recently curated by Criterion and the film became the subject of a companion art book featuring a foreword by artist Ed Ruscha published by Hat & Beard Press.

Q&A In conversation with Filmmaker Nick Ebeling and Publisher J.C. Gabel about uncovering “lost” and rare photographs and ephemera related to Hopper’s career and Hollywood exile.

Moderated by artist, author, and photographer Stephen Berkman

About the Programming Partner:

NICK EBELING | Director

Born in Los Angeles, Nick Ebeling is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. His first feature film, the critically acclaimed Along for the Ride – a documentary about Dennis Hopper through the eyes of his idiosyncratic right hand man Satya de la Manitou, featuring a score by Gemma Thompson of Savages – was an Official Selection of the Venice Film Festival, and the Critics Selection of Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival of the Bologna Cineteca (which Huffington Post called “beautiful, powerful”). A book companion to the film was published by Hat & Beard Press in 2021. Ebeling is also the co-creator of the underground cult comic book and soundtrack album Gunwolf (an instant sell-out upon initial release, which Juxtapoz called, “An eye-popping manga-style tour de force...”), co-founder of independent publishing imprint Dirt Bike Press, and producer of two albums. Most recently, Nick Ebeling’s late-1990s autobiographical adventures were detailed in his first novel, Earthquake Weather (Hat & Beard Press, 2023). Earthquake Weather is an artist’s memories of being young at a point of personal change in a city on the precipice of a cultural tipping point. While writing, Ebeling revisited a side of L.A. that in many ways does not exist now in the way that he knew it then, but still evoked memories of being in art school. He took a 35mm camera on these outings, which captured a kind of visual diary that helped him reconnect with that time in his life. These images were the recent subject of an exhibition inspired by the novel at These Days Gallery in Los Angeles.

A graduate of Art Center College of Design, Ebeling resides in Los Angeles, California.

J.C. GABEL | Producer & Along for the Ride art book publisher of Hat & Beard Press

Founder of HAT & BEARD Press, publishers of the ‘Along For The Ride’ art book. An active think tank and a creative collective dedicated to all things tactile, Hat & Beard creates original, illustrated nonfiction media of pop-cultural and historical significance drawing on existing cult audiences. In the mid-’90s, he handmade the first issue of a “’zine” called ‘Stop Smiling’, “The Magazine for High-Minded Lowlifes” that caught the eye of Director John Hughes. Modeled on “the glory days of magazines”, 1960s ’Esquire’ early ’Rolling Stone’, vintage ‘Playboy’, etc. ‘Stop Smiling’ developed into a cult favorite full-color glossy. After a stint at Taschen Books, Gabel then edited the AMC Mad Men book and was tapped to edit and publish ‘The Pitchfork Review’, the print quarterly of Pitchfork, the world’s largest music website.

STEPHEN BERKMAN | Moderator

Like a 19th century somnambulist, Stephen Berkman perambulates through the now vanished era of pre-chemical photography. Conjuring a time when the medium was considered akin to natural magic, his camera obscura installations encompass both literal and philosophical explorations of the mysterious interplay of light and optics. Berkman's pre-analog experiments, in addition to his glass plate photographs, will be presented in a monograph titled: Predicting the Past: Zohar Studios, the Lost Years. Summoning the acuity of a 19th century French novel, this body of work is suffused with the quixotic, the quotidian and Quasimodo. Born in Syracuse, New York, and based in Pasadena, California, Berkman is completing his photography monograph and currently teaches at the Art Center College of Design.

Film run time: 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Doors open at 6:30PM, Screening begins at 7:00PM

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