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'Lost' Steve Jobs interview to screen at theaters

An approximately hour-long interview with the iconic Apple co-founder, filmed in 1995 for a PBS documentary, will screen at movie theaters this month. Thought lost, the footage had been duped onto VHS and had sat quietly in a U.K. garage, waiting to be rediscovered.

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Apple fan boys and Steve Jobs aficionados will want to set reminders on their iPhones for Wednesday and Thursday, November 16 and 17.

Those are the days when a recently unearthed interview with Jobs is scheduled to be shown at Landmark Theaters in several cities throughout the United States.

"Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview," as the approximately 70-minute program is being called, consists of a Q&A conducted with Jobs in 1995, after he'd been ousted from the company he'd co-founded (and before he'd pulled off his now legendary iPod, iPhone, and iPad-powered comeback).

The interview was conducted by writer and producer Robert Cringely for his 1996 PBS miniseries "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires," a look at the advent of the PC and the rise of Silicon Valley.

Cringely explained to The Los Angeles Times that only 10 minutes of the original conversation wound up in "Triumph," and that when he went looking for the rest of the footage for possible use in a sequel, it was nowhere to be found.

Fortunately, however, "Triumph" director Paul Sen had made a VHS dupe and tossed it into his U.K. garage. After Jobs' death from cancer last month, Sen contacted Cringely, who subsequently got in touch with Landmark.

Remembering his talk with Jobs, which took place at Next headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., Cringely told the Times that the Mac mastermind was "great that day." Cringely said the talk puts Jobs' various facets on display, including his humor and a certain crabbiness. During the discussion, Jobs tears into Microsoft and expresses his displeasure at his ouster from Apple. "He was a cranky guy," Cringely told the Times. "I think we see that."

The film is scheduled to screen in 19 cities in the U.S.:

  • Atlanta
  • Baltimore
  • Berkeley, Calif.
  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Dallas
  • Denver
  • Houston
  • Indianapolis
  • Los Angeles
  • Milwaukee
  • Minneapolis
  • New York
  • Palo Alto, Calif.
  • Philadelphia
  • San Diego
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Washington, D.C.

In Palo Alto, where Jobs lived, the film will screen through November 22.

Jobs' death, of course, grabbed the front page of news outlets around the world and has led to tributes as diverse as walls of Post-It notes at Apple stores to runs on the Apple founder's favored eyeglass frames.

Here's some footage from the interview: