Dead Souls (2025) + OKAPI
Advertisement
Juggling slapstick dark humour, satirical political critique and genre-defying surrealism, Alex Cox (Repo Man) offers a loose adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 Russian novel, now situated in the borderlands of the American West. Live music preshow of murder ballads by avant-folk duo OKAPI!
Preshow before the film by Okapi, an Asheville, NC-based avant-folk duo that employs harmonium, cello, and voice for original murder ballads that explicitly depict humanity's complex, corrupt, and unavoidably tethered relationship to the divine feminine of nature, as well as the often abstract realm she brings with her.
For his directorial swan song, Alex Cox (Repo Man) directs and stars in this frontier fable of American greed. Dead Souls, is a loose adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 novel of the same name. Pistol duels and crooked officials abound, and spaghetti Western legend Gianni Garko claims a co-writer credit. But Cox’s idiosyncrasy stands out as the film veers tonally through the picaresque, dark satire and genre curveballs you won’t expect. A meditative, sincere landscape at the borderlands of the American nightmare: where fortunes rest on a dirty deal, and legacies are built on blood and gold...
CRITICAL ACCLAIM:
"A slow-burn fever dream from a director who never learned how to play it safe."- Westerns Al’Italiana
"Juggling slapstick humour, political critique, trigger-happy action and surreal tangents, Dead Souls is a charmingly eccentric, mischievous late-career effort from an admirably uncompromising indie auteur." - The Film Verdict
"A brilliant adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 absurdist Russian classic. In what may be his final film, Alex Cox smartly reconfigures the classic theme of bureaucratic greed in Tsarist Russia into a bold, timely political Western situated in the borderlands of the 19th-century American West.” - Film International
"A jauntily odd and surreal love letter to the spaghetti West of the movies, and a satirical thorn in the flesh of Trumpian politics." - The Guardian
"Wild, original! Dead Souls is funny in that offbeat, purely Cox kind of way." - Film Threat
Preshow before the film by Okapi, an Asheville, NC-based avant-folk duo that employs harmonium, cello, and voice for original murder ballads that explicitly depict humanity's complex, corrupt, and unavoidably tethered relationship to the divine feminine of nature, as well as the often abstract realm she brings with her.
For his directorial swan song, Alex Cox (Repo Man) directs and stars in this frontier fable of American greed. Dead Souls, is a loose adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 novel of the same name. Pistol duels and crooked officials abound, and spaghetti Western legend Gianni Garko claims a co-writer credit. But Cox’s idiosyncrasy stands out as the film veers tonally through the picaresque, dark satire and genre curveballs you won’t expect. A meditative, sincere landscape at the borderlands of the American nightmare: where fortunes rest on a dirty deal, and legacies are built on blood and gold...
CRITICAL ACCLAIM:
"A slow-burn fever dream from a director who never learned how to play it safe."- Westerns Al’Italiana
"Juggling slapstick humour, political critique, trigger-happy action and surreal tangents, Dead Souls is a charmingly eccentric, mischievous late-career effort from an admirably uncompromising indie auteur." - The Film Verdict
"A brilliant adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 absurdist Russian classic. In what may be his final film, Alex Cox smartly reconfigures the classic theme of bureaucratic greed in Tsarist Russia into a bold, timely political Western situated in the borderlands of the 19th-century American West.” - Film International
"A jauntily odd and surreal love letter to the spaghetti West of the movies, and a satirical thorn in the flesh of Trumpian politics." - The Guardian
"Wild, original! Dead Souls is funny in that offbeat, purely Cox kind of way." - Film Threat
Advertisement
Where is it happening?
Epsilon Spires, 190 Main Street,Brattleboro, Vermont, United States
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherEpsilon Spires
