UPDATE:The Toronto Film Festival will not be able to screen Sydney Pollackscontroversial new Aretha Franklin doc Amazing Grace, according to Variety. The singer had previously banned the film at last weeks Telluride Film Festival, arguing that she did not give Pollack consent to use selected footage.
Aretha Franklinwas granted a last-minute injunction to prevent the Sydney Pollack-directed documentary Amazing Grace from premiering at the Telluride Film Festival. The film which features Franklins 1972 performance at Los Angeles New Temple Missionary Baptist Church but was never released due to sound problems was set to screen for the first time Friday night. However, organizers alerted attendees, a Colorado judge has granted the injunction to block the screening of Amazing Grace at the Telluride Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter writes.
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Amazing Grace was also scheduled to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was one of Rolling Stones most anticipated films of the fest, but that screening too is now in jeopardy. Following the death of Pollack in 2008, producer Alan Elliott acquired Amazing Grace footage through Warner Bros. Studios witha quitclaim deed. However, Wright still required the permission of Franklin to release the film, something he had not obtained prior to the Telluride screening.
[Wright] had to have permission from her and he didnt, Judge John Kane told THR of his ruling. He went ahead without having her consent. During the injunction proceedings, Franklin called into the courthouse from Detroit to provide 10 minutes of testimony. Aretha Franklin has spent over 50 years developing her art, Franklins attorney Fred Fresard told THR. Congress passed laws to protect artists like her. The producers needed to get her permission. So we think this was the right decision and we are very happy with the result.
Justice, respect and what is right prevailed and ones right to own their own self-image, Franklin said in a statement Saturday.
Pollacks documentary featured a behind-the-scenes look at the recording of Franklins 1972 live album Amazing Grace, the highest-selling album of Franklins career and the best-selling gospel album of all time. However, problems with the synchronization of the sound forced Pollack to abandon the film, which languished in the Warner Bros. vaults for 38 years until Wright unearthed the project after Pollack expressed an interest in completing the film prior to his 2008 death.
The spirit of this album transcends the notion of an old-fashioned church revival. It often sounds like a homecoming celebration for Arethas return, Jon Landau wrote in his 1972 Amazing Grace review for Rolling Stone. There is pleasure in the audience at hearing her do things she hasnt done for them in years. And we frequently sense that she is not just leading them, but they are leading her. The sense of event reaches its zenith when Reverend Franklin allows that if you wanna know the truth, she hasnt ever left the church.'