Conor Oberst has made a short film starring Phoebe Bridgers.
The Bright Eyes frontman has announced the news of his debut film, Invention 13, which is set to premiere on September 26 at LA’s Beyond Fest.
The film will focus on a pianist who attempts to learn Bach’s “notoriously intricate ‘Invention 13′”, but encounters “strange obstacles”.
“Music is an exorcism. Sometimes it won’t come out,” Oberst added on his Instagram.
Invention 13 was co-directed with Shawn Foree, and will feature actors Emory Cohen and Olivia Howard. Pro skater Nelly Morville will also make an appearance in the film, while Phoebe Bridgers – Oberst’s former bandmate in Better Oblivion Community Center – will provide a voiceover.
Bright Eyes bandmate Nathaniel Walcott has also written the score for Invention 13.
Better Oblivion Community Center released their self-titled debut album in 2019 via Dead Oceans.
The pair spoke to NME at the time about forming their supergroup, whose origins began while recording Bridgers’ track ‘Would You Rather’.
Discovering their rockier style compared to their folk-leaning solo outputs, Bridgers told NME: “We had a joke that the record size kept getting bigger. We wrote a song together and it was fun. It doesn’t immediately fit into one of our styles. It was kind of its own style already so we were like ‘Maybe we should put out a 7inch or something. Then we kept writing writing songs and…
“We were like ’10inches are cool!’” Oberst added. “Then it just ended up being a full record.”
Watch the full conversation below:
Since their self-titled debut, Better Oblivion Community Center haven’t released any new music. They did reunite on stage at Oberst’s LA show in 2024, performing three songs including their collaborative track ‘My City’.
Oberst was also listed in the credits of Bridgers’ most recent album ‘Lost Weekend’, a record we gave a five-star review.
“Bridgers’ ‘Lost Weekend’ is the opposite of emotional evasion: more a reckoning with herself and the romantic and familial love and loss that have shaped her story and storytelling,” we wrote. “It’s a feat that could only be achieved by a songwriter and musician self-assured in their penmanship and musicality, someone who may have started the journey of writing her third album feeling lost, but by the end wasn’t unmoored at all.”
The post Conor Oberst has made a short film starring Phoebe Bridgers appeared first on NME.
