The River Phoenix Pages

River

"Life is multi-layered and there's no way I could do my life justice in one pat answer."


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News

October 31, 2024
It's been 5 years since the last update, but River Phoenix is still being remembered. The Forum des Images in Paris (France) held a conference last year to commemorate his acting work on the 30th anniversary of his passing. Link to the video of the conference, Narcolepticône, and a few info on this page.
I also added content to the Poetry page and the Bios and docs page.

October 31, 2019
Rain Phoenix's solo album has been released today on all platforms. All links are on her official site, including a link to order a physical copy (CD and/or vinyl), plus goodies.
I was lucky enough to attend the last residency of Rain Phoenix at the Zebulon Cafe in Los Angeles. You can read my review here (sorry for the quality of pictures, the lighting was very dark).

September 27, 2019
Rain Phoenix is going to release a solo album called River this Halloween (2019). She is holding residency with guests every Monday evening of September 2019 at the Zebulon Cafe in Los Angeles.
She already released the first three singles, and the first one features two Aleka's Attic songs as B-tracks.

Rain and Summer recently started together LaunchLeft, a podcast and website to give "a space for famed creatives to launch the next wave of creative rebels". The first podcasts featured Flea (from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Sam Phillips with her daughter, among other people.

More details in the Siblings page.
I also updated the Poetry page with long due updates, sorry for keeping you waiting.

August 23th, 2016
I added a whole page about the Gus Van Sant exhibition at the Paris Cinematheque, with videos, links, pictures, and other resources. I also wrote a long summary in English of Jean-Marc Lalanne's conference about River. I also updated the page about River's siblings : among other things, they appeared together last year at a public event, and Rain and Summer participated to an interesting self-acceptance project in 2016.

March 7th, 2016
Natalie Merchant has released a CD and DVD celebrating the 20 years of her album Tigerlily. It features a live recording of her tribute song "River" with friends talking about River Phoenix. I also added to the Tributes page three books, one by James Franco, another featuring a text from him on River, and an essay on Afterlife as Afterimage that features comments from the River Phoenix Pages.

I added to the Links page a fellow website to the links page : Remember River Phoenix. They now have a Facebook group.

October 31, 2015
New exclusive perks have been added to the "Never Give Up" crowdfunding project : T-shirts, as well as two unique pieces : a 1:1 copy of the original Dark Blood slateboard date October 30, 1993, and George Sluizer's own copy of the Dark Blood Scenario used while shooting the movie.
My Own Private Idaho was shown as part of a tribute to Keanu Reeves at the Deauville Film Festival, on September 5th, 2015. He briefly mentioned River in his thank you speech. The festival also aired a documentary about Sidney Lumet (see the Running on Empty page).
MOPI was also shown in 2013 at the Toronto Internation Film Festival as part of a Keanu Reeves retrospective.
Criterion is releasing the movie on Blu-Ray in reedition with multiple bonuses.
The Paris Cinematheque will hold an exhibition and retrospective about Gus Van Sant in 2016 (see the MOPI page for details about all of these).
Photographer Michael Tighe wrote a piece about his work with River (see also the Press page).

October 7, 2015 :
A crowdfunding has started on Indiegogo to help bring Dark Blood to screens all over the world. Harold Jalving, sound engineer for the 2012 edit of Dark Blood, is working with the blessing of Anouk Sluizer on a film documenting the battle of George Sluizer to complete Dark Blood, "Never Give Up". The project also aims to help in the quest for the missing reels, and will feature interviews of Jonathan Pryce, River's co-star in Dark Blood.
If you're asking yourself "Would River want people to see Dark Blood?", the late Karen Black answered this in the Filmen Over Grenzen documentary : "River was an actor. Every actor wants his work to be seen". After seeing the movie thanks to Anouk and George Sluizer, I concur. A lot of work went into it, it's only fair to give it a chance to be seen by everyone who wants, the way it was meant.
"Never Give Up" IndieGogo page.
"Never Give Up" Facebook page.

October 31, 2014 : I added a link to the VOD of the "Too Young to Die" documentary about River Phoenix, and tributes in the Graphic Arts section.

August 23, 2014 : I added a review with screencaps and several articles about the new documentary about River Phoenix by Broadview TV, in their series "Too Young to Die".

July 28, 2014 : ATTENTION, GERMAN AND FRENCH FANS : the new documentary about River Phoenix by Broadview TV, in their series "Too Young to Die", with air in France and Germany on Arte, the German / French associated channel, on Saturday, August 9. It will be part of the Summer of the 90es theme special programming. Official page on Arte with trailer here (French). Official page on Arte with trailer here (German).

March 5, 2014 : a kind soul and fellow fan uploaded the Channel 4 documentary "This Road will never end" on Youtube. You can save the video by copying the link in this website : http://www.clipconverter.cc/ . Thank you Stash Puppet!
Also, as good news don't come alone, a new documentary has been completed by German company Broadview, for their series Too Young To Die. Attention Australian fans : it will air on Australian TV (Foxtel) on March 12, 2014. Official trailer here.

March 2, 2014 : I added scans of a French article published in the November 2013 issue of Grazia magazine about Gavin Edwards' biography of River. There's a River-related crowdfunding project in Japan at the moment, but I can't figure out exactly what they're trying to do. Apparently a mini-River-festival in Japan for the release of Dark Blood there in May? They seem to want to couple it with a release of Sam Shepard's Silent Tongue as well. If you know more, please let me know. Also, for the Japanese release of Dark Blood, an official website has been set up, with videos and promo pictures.

February 25, 2014 : I added links to various articles about the Dark Blood screening at the Glasgow Film Festival, on Dark Blood's page.

February 20, 2014 : Dark Blood will have a national release in Japan in May 2014.

February 17, 2014 : almost a year after Dark Blood was shown at the Berlinale festival, Scottish fans will also get a chance to see it on the big screen at the Glasgow Film Festival, on Monday February 24, 2014, at the GFT at 6:30 pm. This will be the UK premiere. More info on the showing here. George Sluizer interview on the Herald Scotland from Feb. 15, 2014.

October 31, 2013 : to commemorate the 20th anniversary of River's death, the River Phoenix Pages have been re-designed a bit. New content has been added : a new biography has been released a few days ago (see Bios & Doc Page), and three articles (2 in French, and a short one in English) were added to the Press page.


January 20, 2013 : great news! Dark Blood will be screened mid-February at the Berlinale, Germany's famous film festival.
It will also have its first US screening at the Miami Film Festival in March.
I added scans of an article in French about Dark Blood, published in July 2012, on the articles page.
I also did an interview of French director Kevin Robic, who made a short movie about River Phoenix (see the Bios & Doc Page).

October 31, 2012 : thanks to George and Anouik Sluizer, I was able to see Dark Blood at the Netherlands Film Festival. Find a report on the event here.
Consequently, I added a lot of information about the movie (review, pictures, articles...) on its dedicated page.
I added a page about the documentary about George Sluizer "Filming Beyond Boundaries", also shown at the festival.
I also added a long article published in Entertainment Weekly about Dark Blood and River on the articles page.
Last but not least, George Sluizer also kindly granted me an interview for the website. Many thanks to him and his daughter for that.

August 23, 2012 : DARK BLOOD has been completed.
It will be shown on September 27, 2012 at the Netherlands Film Festival for a special guest screening.
George Sluizer is looking for a distributor, but as of today, there is no release announced.
A new scan article has been added on the articles page, as well as a new poem and a new comment.

June 18, 2012 : FAN HELP NEEDED TO FINISH DARK BLOOD!
George Sluizer talked last year about wanting to complete Dark Blood. He's now planning to show it at the Dutch Film Festival in September 2012, in Utrecht (Netherlands). Since he couldn't find enough sponsors to complete the movie, he turned to a crowd-funding website, dedicated to movie projects in Netherlands, Cinecrowd. He needs 15 000 Eur to finance the music and editing of the movie, and we're already above 10 000 Eur, so 2/3 are done already. The principle is simple :
1) you send money and get a receipt (they have a Paypal account for international )
2) if the global amount is met, depending on how much you gave, you will get rewards (here for example, for a contribution of 50 Eur, you get a limited edition DVD in addition to a few treats, so this may be your only chance to see that movie. For 300 Eur, you get 2 tickets to see the movie at the Dutch Film Festival)
3) if the global amount is not met, you get refunded.
So there's zero risk and you choose how much you want to contribute. SEE HOW YOU CAN HELP HERE.

October 31, 2011 : New scan article has been added on the articles page.

March 31, 2011 : I split biographies and documentaries about River on a distinct page, separate from the Tributes page, as there are now a lot of bios and tributes as well. It's especially for the release of James Franco's two experimental movies made with the rushes from My Own Private Idaho, "Endless Idaho" and "My Own Private River", that you can still see at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles until April 9, 2011, if you're lucky! Also, new contributions have been added to the fan-feedback pages : Comments page, Art page, Poetry page, and the Memorial.

If you experience any trouble -files not found or such-, please let me know at kats4rpp@yahoo.fr.

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Created August 20th, 1995 by Tim Propert
Maintained from June 14th, 1996 to September 1997 by Richard Ross
Maintained since September 29th, 1997 by Kats - comments welcome!