Hungry for a fix, a group of skilled jazz musicians waits in a cramped New York City apartment for their heroin hookup to arrive. A naïve documentary director sits in the room, begging the junkies to “act real” for his camera. Shirley Clarke’s The Connection—which, in its opening moments, claims to be composed of “real” footage—was shot less than a year after the release of direct-cinema landmark Primary (1960). And while it can be read as a deliciously sly, ahead-of-its-time attack on claims of truth in documentary (or, alternately, as an early, remarkably sophisticated example of the “found footage” genre), writing off The Connection as a time capsule curiosity is reductive; this is electrifying, nerve-racking cinema that employs nonfiction artifice to haunting effect. Newly restored by Milestone Films and soon to receive a theatrical release, The Connection marks the feature-length debut of Clarke, one of documentary cinema’s great directors—as well as a former student of Stephens College. Presented by Stephens College (CB)