Amy Winehouse Documentary Will Tell The Real Story

Amy Winehouse was famous for her troubled and controversial life, almost as much as she was for her soulful and captivating voice. Now, Universal Music and acclaimed documentary filmmaker Asif Kapadia have teamed up to perhaps alter some misconceived perceptions about the singing artist.

According to Hollywood Reporter, the untitled film uses never-before-seen archival footage to chronicle Winehouse’s life and career. The Winehouse documentary will reunite Kapadia with producer James Gay-Rees. The duo worked together on the 2010 award-winning doc Senna, which recounts the life and death of Brazilian car-racing champion Ayrton Senna.

“This is an incredibly modern, emotional and relevant film that has the power to capture the zeitgeist and shine a light on the world we live in in a way that very few films can,” said Kapadia and Gay-Rees.

“Amy was a once-in-a-generation talent who captured everyone’s attention; she wrote and sung from the heart, and everyone fell under her spell. But tragically, Amy seemed to fall apart under the relentless media attention, her troubled relationships, her global success and precarious lifestyle. As a society we celebrated her huge success, but then we were quick to judge her failings when it suited us,” they added.

Focus Features International, a division within the Universal, will seek a foreign buyer for the Amy Winehouse documentary at next month’s Cannes Film Market.

 

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Back to top