On January 15, 2019, Simon had a dream in which a voice told him, “you’re working on a piece called ‘Seven Psalms.’” In the months that followed, lines and phrases would come to him at odd moments, sometimes even while he was asleep. He began to hear the melody that would stitch the bits and pieces together. The process continued during the pandemic. As the verses took shape – like a series of photographs emerging from the chemical baths of a darkroom – Simon reached out to Gibney to see if he would be interested in filming his process of taking the basic elements and turning them into the album that would become Seven Psalms.

In the time it took to gather a small crew, Gibney and producer Svetlana Zill traveled to Simon’s new studio in Wimberly, Texas, where Simon sketched out, on guitar and raw vocals, a series of songs that examined faith, death, the existence of God (and the mystery of creation). “This whole piece is really an argument I’m having with myself about belief, or not,” says Simon in the film. As the themes of the new music become clear, so too, for Gibney, did the idea that these sessions might offer a perfect lens through which to tell the story of Simon’s evolution from working-class Queens kid to becoming one of music’s most innovative and celebrated singer/songwriters.

The film jutaposes the process of making the new album against archival material tracing Simon’s career and creative journey, including revelatory, previously unseen footage from such historic moments as the recording of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Graceland” and Simon & Garfunkel’s unforgettable reunion concert in Central Park, and 10 years later, Simon’s solo concert there performed before 750,000 people. “In Restless Dreams” is a meeting of two masters of their craft, a deep look into the miracle and wonder of songwriting, and an exploration of a life of singular creativity that has lost none of its curiosity, ambition and mystery