A note from director david liver
Tuli Tuli Tuli is a film on dissent. In times when truth and sense of priority seem to be slipping away and reality itself seems to be merely fiction, some forgotten cultural influences are perhaps more vital than ever. We need to tap into their resonance.
In the past years I have found myself revisiting Tuli Kupferberg’s fresh assaults on reality over and over again.
Diving in his prolific work, I rediscovered his lively bits, and was reminded of the disruptive force of joy.
Tuli Kupferberg might be one of those figures that only gets more elusive over time, but his voice still catches us unprepared and slaps us with the same violent truth and joyful exuberance as ever.
Today, Tuli’s voice is still so needed, so radical, so visionary, because it enables everyone to bridge the critical gap between reality and their own inner child. This is so energizing.
This film raises one fundamental question:
How do we find a way to address the ever present problems of our time while maintaining the energy to keep up with life and revolt?
This aims to be an encouraging film that bears witness to a writer bearing witness. Besides making you want to dive into Tuli’s work as soon as possible, Tuli Tuli Tuli wants to offer a clearer sense of means, ends, purposes and fulfillment all the while being joyfully revolted.
TEAM TULI
DAVID LIVER
writer & Co-Director
David is a French-Italian artist, writer, and performer who has exhibited and performed internationally in Europe and North America – Venice and Prague Biennales, Bimal Projects Berlin, MBK gallery NYC, and Nowhere Milano to name a few.
Liver has been published in various magazines and chapbooks. He recently published the poetry book INTRAMURAL SPORTS with Aliah Rosenthal and Ai Weiwei. He is director of the Art & Politics magazine VOICE OVER and is part of the cult magazine E IL TOPO. Currently, Liver is directing and producing with the French company Urubu Films.
fRANCOIS COMBIN
Producer
Francois is a French producer and filmmaker. He is President of Urubu Films, a Paris based Agency and production company. Bringing together a wide range of skilled artists, specialists and professionals, Urubu develops, creates and produces high-end creative content as well as documentary films and TV series in the fields of Art, Culture, and Society.
François directed the documentaries ARCHITECTONES and VEILHAN VENEZIA. He is also directing THE DANCER AND THE CONTAINER. Made over 10 years, this is an extensive portrait of the Franco-Japanese contemporary dancer Satchie Noro.
SAMARA KUPFERBERG
Executive producer
Visual artist and curator of the Tuli Kupferberg estate, Samara is indeed Tuli’s daughter.
Her drawings have recently been shown juxtaposed to Tuli’s, in NYC at Essex Flowers gallery, and at the Hok Gallery in the Hague, Netherlands. Samara is also the editor of recent posthumous publications of Kupferberg’s graphic and poetic work such as TIME TOWARD TIME IS FLOWING // Early Drawings 1950-1965, published by Ragged Lion Press, UK, 2023.
Steve Shepherd
Co-Writer
Music historian, curator, and long-time agent for artists active in the American countercultural and experimental scenes. He co-wrote the film and contributes deep contextual knowledge of 20th-century protest music and alternative media. Shepherd also co-presents DJ for a Day, a monthly radio show with Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, continuing his exploration of music as a space of social and aesthetic experimentation.
