BERLIN — A David Bowie concert film that has sat unseen for almost fifty years — because Bowie himself did not like it — will return next year not in a cinema, but in an arena. David Bowie in “Stage,” an immersive production built from previously unseen 35mm footage of his 1978 Isolar II tour, will have its world premiere at Berlin’s Uber Arena on February 14, 2027, as part of the 77th Berlin International Film Festival, the producers announced on Tuesday.
The Film Bowie Shelved
The footage was shot by the actor and director David Hemmings at three Earls Court concerts — June 29, June 30 and July 1, 1978 — while Bowie was touring the music of Low and “Heroes,” the albums he had made in Berlin. Bowie was dissatisfied with the result. “I simply didn’t like the way it had been shot,” he said in 2000, and the film went unreleased. The music survived in another form: the June 30 and July 1 shows supplied the official live album Welcome to the Blackout (Live London ’78), released in 2018. The pictures did not surface at all.
Found In The Archive
Filmmaker Brett Morgen — whose Moonage Daydream (2022) was the first Bowie documentary officially authorised by his estate — found the Hemmings negatives about ten years ago while researching that film, and has spent years restoring them for Stage. The production is made by Wonderworld in collaboration with the David Bowie Estate; Rob Hallett, a former AEG Live president of international, leads the production, and discussions about an arena presentation go back to 2018. The premiere falls in the year Bowie would have turned 80: a season of events under the banner Bowie80 is planned across 2027, a decade after his death in 2016 at the age of 69.
Not A Screening — An Arena Show
Stage is designed to put the audience inside the concert rather than in front of a screen. The restored footage plays across three screens, with transparent LED panels and large-scale projections; every seat gets a 7.1 surround-sound mix by Paul Massey, the Oscar-winning mixer of Bohemian Rhapsody who also mixed Moonage Daydream. The lighting design is by Patrick Woodroffe, whose credits include the Rolling Stones and Elton John — and Martin Scorsese’s Stones film Shine a Light, which opened the Berlinale in 2006. The Berlinale runs from February 10 to 21, 2027; the Uber Arena holds 17,000 people.
The Band, And The Songs
The 1978 band on film is one of the strongest Bowie ever took on the road: Carlos Alomar as musical director on rhythm guitar, Adrian Belew on lead guitar, George Murray on bass, Dennis Davis on drums, Roger Powell on keyboards, Sean Mayes on piano and Simon House on electric violin. The set leans on Low and “Heroes” and reaches back for “ Ziggy Stardust,” “Rebel Rebel,” “Fame,” “The Jean Genie” and “Suffragette City.”
Berlin, Then Home
Berlin is the right city for the premiere: Bowie lived there in the mid-1970s, and the so-called Berlin Trilogy — Low, “Heroes” and Lodger — was the work the Isolar II tour was built to perform. After the premiere, arena dates follow across Europe in May 2027 and in the UK in June and July, including a return to Earls Court, where the footage was shot. Tickets for Berlin went on presale on Wednesday morning, with the general sale opening on Friday, October 30.
The Show — In Short
Unseen 35mm film of Bowie’s three 1978 Earls Court concerts, shot by David Hemmings and shelved at Bowie’s own insistence, has been restored by Brett Morgen, director of Moonage Daydream, and rebuilt as a three-screen immersive arena production with the Bowie Estate. Stage premieres at Berlin’s Uber Arena on February 14, 2027, during the Berlinale, with European arena dates in May and UK dates — including Earls Court itself — in June and July.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, via Parade and Uncut; Far Out; Side-Line — reporting of October 27–28, 2026.
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