Since 1981, Glenn O'Brien had possession of all of the live musical performance recordings. Unfortunately, the original voice soundtrack was lost in Italy by the film storage vault. The producers were able to get most of the original cast to re-dub their dialogue. But Jean Michel Basquiat died in 1988. So Saul Williams was hired to dub Basquiat's dialogue.
In 1981, a political scandal that affected the Italian production company prevented the post-production and release of the film. Subsequently, after much searching and petitioning the courts in Italy, Glenn O'Brien located the film in 1998. Finally, post production began in 1999 and the film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000.
Final film of Cookie Mueller.