NOWNESS has collaborated with the Leonard Cohen Estate to mark the release of the legendary musician’s last original, posthumous album, Thanks For The Dance. This exciting project brings onboard a talented host of filmmakers who will be sharing their artistic responses to Cohen’s unheard body of work, which Sony Music will be unveiling in full in November.

Indian-American director and artist Smriti Keshari, alongside filmmaker Scott Thrift and a team of researchers, examined over half a century of Leonard Cohen’s discography for the production of this film. Looking into Cohen’s fifteen studio albums, they produced 1,244 keywords related to the themes of his work. To create ‘The Goal’, the filmmakers condensed the data down to this collection of images that tell the story of the musician’s life, love and art in chronological order.

“In this film no single image is out of place,” says Keshari. “We honor Cohen’s verses by connecting images and paintings to his evocative visual language. This is designed to be watched again and again, as an ode to his towering work. Every time you watch this film you will see something new, something different, something mysterious, something deeper.”

“’The Goal’ washes over you in an immeasurable way. It’s a journey into Leonard Cohen’s stream of consciousness,” Keshari continues. “He was a poet of brokenness, loss, redemption, devotion, love, vanity, sex, violence and so much more. Cohen’s lyrics are a labyrinth of ingenuity that will remain a mystery for as long as the Earth spins.”

Sony Music will be releasing Thanks For The Dance on 22 November 2019