Pulp Announce New Film ‘What Do You Do for an Encore?’

Pulp will release a new film, Pulp: What Would You Do for an Encore?, this fall exclusively via Mubi. The 90-minute film was directed by Gareth Jennings and narrated by frontman Jarvis Cocker.

A press release describes the release as being “in the spirit of Stop Making Sense and The Last Waltz,” explaining that it charts “Pulp’s extraordinary journey from obscurity to cultural touchstone.” It showcases Pulp’s biggest ever arena show, part of the global tour for their album More, with four decades of never-seen-before archival material. The film includes twenty songs and attempts to answer to the question, “What do you do for an encore?”

Jennings, the filmmaker behind Sing and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, previously helmed the music videos for Pulp’s 1997 single “Help The Aged” and their 1988 track “A Little Soul.”

“Back in the summer of 2022, I first heard a rumor there might be a Pulp reunion and I was over the moon,” Jennings said in a statement. “Pulp, Jarvis, and those songs really mean the world to me and the chance to see the band perform together again was a much-needed beacon of joy in a time when things for many of us have seemed relentlessly gloomy. My next thought was of how much I would love to capture this moment on film, so I got in touch with Jarvis and we began to talk about the show as well as the film that could emerge. Inspiration came from a line from This Is Hardcore: What exactly do you do for an encore?”

Last year, Pulp reunited and released their first new album since 2001. The LP, More, marked the Brit pop band’s eighth full-length release. Cocker was inspired to get the band back in the studio in part by the deaths of his mother and the band’s longtime bassist Steve Mackey.

“When Steve passed away, it’s a kind of cliche, but it gives you a reality check,” Cocker told Rolling Stone. “It made us realize that we had a chance to be creative. We had time to create something, while we could. If you’re still around, you’ve still got that opportunity to make things, so this is the time.”