Description from TIFF 2013 catalog by Thom Powers:

This engrossing documentary recounts the story of one of film history’s most legendary and tantalizing “what could have been” tales: the big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel Dune by Chilean filmmaker/cartoonist/guru/visionary/bullshit artist Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose art-house freak-outs El Topo and The Holy Mountain had made him one of the figureheads of the 1970s midnight-movie circuit. Acquiring the rights to Herbert’s novel in 1973, Jodorowsky set about rounding up a veritable Who’s Who of high-profile collaborators for his multimillion-dollar galactic epic — including renowned French comic book artist Moebius, screenwriter and special effects artist Dan O’Bannon (Dark Star, Alien), artist H.R. Giger (Alien), Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd, and such icons as Salvador Dalí, Mick Jagger, Orson Welles and Gloria Swanson — until financial obstacles resulted in the project’s cancellation. Exploring the creative dreams and cosmic ambitions behind The Dune That Never Was via in-depth interviews with Jodorowsky (as ebullient and charming as ever at age eighty-four), his collaborators and admirers (including Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn), and inventive animation that brings Moebius’ stunning storyboards to life, Jodorowsky’s Dune is not a eulogy for greatness thwarted, but an inspirational story about how a film can bequeath a rich creative legacy — even without being made.