In September 2025, shortly after performing at The Town festival in São Paulo, Brazil, Bruce Dickinson teamed up with directors Leo Liberti and Antoine De Montremy to create a cinematic companion piece for a newly reworked version of “Tears Of The Dragon”. The updated track appears on More Balls To Picasso, the revamped edition of Bruce Dickinson‘s 1994 solo album Balls To Picasso.
Filmed inside a disused brewery in São Paulo, the production brought together Bruce Dickinson, his House Band Of Hell, and the Almai Orchestra under the direction of Antonio Teoli. The orchestra had already contributed to the studio recording of the new version of “Tears Of The Dragon”, helping reshape the song with a broader orchestral arrangement.
The finished film also features Brazilian ballet dancer Renata Bardazi, whose performance adds another visual layer to the song’s emotional themes. The project has already made an impact on the film festival circuit, collecting several awards and nominations before its public release. Behind-the-scenes footage from the production has also been made available.
Discussing the project, Bruce Dickinson said: “When we reimagined the whole More Balls To Picasso album, we always wanted to do an orchestral version of “Tears Of The Dragon”. Antonio Teoli scored it and we recorded it, then we called up the filmmaker Leo Liberti who previously shot a load of live stuff for me in Brazil that was fabulous. We found this amazing location, an enormous old-school brewery that was almost like a renaissance building, and we made up the orchestra so they looked slightly zombified. All the HOUSE BAND OF HELL band members are in the video and I gave them all instruments to play. The whole thing was brilliant madness. Leo Liberti also came up with the idea of having a ballet dancer interpreting the song, and she was amazing, poetic, and that adds an incredible extra-emotional dimension to the video.”
The video has already collected a number of honors, including several Best Music Video awards across international film festivals.
“Tears Of The Dragon” Video Awards (2026)
- Los Angeles Film Festival IAF — Best Music Video
- Los Angeles Film Awards — Best Music Video
- New York International Film Awards — Best Music Video
- Eastern Europe Film Festival — Best Music Video
- Sweden Luleå International Film Festival — Best Music Video
- World Premiere Films Awards — Best Music Video / Best Editing
- Asian Independent Film Festival — Best Music Video
- Berlin Music Video Awards — Bronze
While Balls To Picasso received a positive response when it was originally released, the album never fully reflected Bruce Dickinson‘s complete vision for the material. Following the success of The Mandrake Project in 2024, he revisited the record, resulting in More Balls To Picasso, a release featuring partial re-recordings, fresh mixes and new mastering work. The updated version presents the songs with a more expansive approach while preserving the spirit of the original album.
More Balls To Picasso also adds two previously unreleased live-in-the-studio recordings, “Gods Of War” and “Shoot All The Clowns”. The album is available as a splatter vinyl double LP and a tri-panel digisleeve CD edition.
