Glastonbury Watch the trailer for Julien Temple's documentary.

"I've always had a problem with being told what to do," says Julien Temple, the middle-aged terrible of British cinema. The director, arguably best known for his work with the Sex Pistols on The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle (1980) and The Filth And The Fury (2000), found the perfect vehicle for his anti-authoritarian ways when Michael Eavis approached him to make a documentary about the 2002 Glastonbury Music Festival.

When that year's event didn't turn out to be Glastonbury's swansong, Temple decided to up the ante and make a movie chronicling the entire history of Britain's best-loved music festival. He asked the public to send in their own Glastonbury footage, and they responded in their thousands... which is when the fun really began for the idiosyncratic director.

The World At War must have had more footage than us, but not many films.

Ultimately he calls the experience of making Glastonbury "liberating", and plans to use more 'found film' on his next film, a documentary about ex-Clash man Joe Strummer. He's also got a thriller about Christopher Marlowe in development which he hopes to shoot towards the end of 2006. "I like the idea of not getting into a predictable routine," Temple notes. "I treat each movie as if I'm starting again, because I don't like the idea that you've learned how to do something and you just do it again. I think film's harder than that." Just don't call him an absolute beginner.

In the video Julien talks about the dark days he endured editing Glastonbury, and why he hopes his use of David Gray will "enrage" people.

Glastonbury is released in UK cinemas on Friday 14th April 2006, and on DVD from Monday 17th July 2006. The film will also air on the BBC during the weekend of Saturday 15th/Sunday 16th July 2006.

Adrian Hennigan | Published 13 April 06

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