Almost lost among Fuller’s many unrealized films was Tigrero, an adventure picture he was to direct for Fox, starring John Wayne as a fearless jaguar hunter hired to lead a stranded couple (Ava Gardner and Tyrone Power) out of the Amazon. Yet in preparation for Tigrero Fuller did more than simply write a script—he also made a long fact-finding/location-scouting journey all the way to Brazil, spending weeks deep in the Amazon, armed with endless cigars, a 16mm camera and his unbounded curiosity. Forty years later, Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki offered Fuller the irresistible chance to “return” to Tigrero, staging a pilgrimage back to Brazil and to the Karaja Indians he had befriended, filmed and never forgotten. Inviting a laconic Jim Jarmusch to serve as interlocutor and travel companion to the still-feisty Fuller, Kaurismäki (and the film’s co-producer Christa Lang-Fuller) followed the unlikely pair from Rio and into the jungle, with Fuller all the while recalling and recounting fascinating stories from his past. Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made is not simply a poignant final portrait of the indomitable Fuller, completed just a few years before the director’s passing, but also a gentle meditation on memory, ethnography and the power of the cinematic imagination. Especially moving and unexpected is the moment when Fuller shares his original footage with the latest members of the Karaja tribe, revealing an ethnographic authenticity and rare power at the earnest heart of Fuller’s fanciful project.