Fatih Akin’s former production partner Klaus Maeck is to revisit the New York of the 1980s for the first project of his new Hamburg-based company Interzone Pictures.

Smash The Control Machine: Howard Brookner and the Western Lands will be directed by Brookner’s 30-year-old nephew Aaron Brookner and presented as part of the Talent Project Market at this year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market.

Maeck, who had run Corazón International with Akin since 2004, will co-produce the documentary with Paula Vaccaro’s Pinball London, the producer of Brookner’s black-and-white romantic drama The Silver Goat.

The film will feature a cast of interviewees including William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Jim Jarmusch and Madonna, and also draw on never-before-seen footage found in Brookner’s archive by his nephew at The Bunker, Burroughs’ last home in NYC.

Delivery is planned for next year to coincide with Burroughs’ centenary.

This is not Maeck’s first encounter with Burroughs. He co-wrote and produced the 1984 cult film Decoder with the American author making an appearance and also directed the documentary portrait William S. Burroughs: Commissioner of Sewers in 1991.

Maeck will also work as a producer for other companies and is developing the satirical melodrama Anhedonia with another new Hamburg company, Storytellers. Robert Stadlober and Julia Hummer are set to star in the film which will be directed by Patrick S. Zimmer, known for the past 10 years as the singer-songwriter “Finn”.