On June 11, A24 Films and the legendary Questlove hosted a special screening of Amy Winehouse documentary “Amy.”
The event was held at The Crosby Hotel. Notables who joined director Asif Kapadia included Mark Ronson’s family Ann Dexter-Jones, Alexander Jones and Mick Jones, UK songstress Natalia Kills and her husband New Zealand crooner Willy Moon, filmmaker Maggie Betts, Cory Kennedy, Lena Hall, Public School designer Maxwell Osborne, Megan Hilty, Tamron Hall, Academy Award winning screenwriter/director Geoffrey Fletcher and musician Chloe Flower.
The film tells the incredible story of six-time Grammy-winner Amy Winehouse – in her own words. Featuring extensive unseen archive footage and previously unheard tracks, this strikingly modern, moving and vital film shines a light on the world we live in, in a way that very few can. A once-in-a-generation talent, Amy Winehouse was a musician that captured the world’s attention. A pure jazz artist in the most authentic sense – she wrote and sung from the heart using her musical gifts to analyze her own problems. The combination of her raw honesty and supreme talent resulted in some of the most unique and adored songs of the modern era. Her huge success, however, resulted in relentless and invasive media attention which coupled with Amy’s troubled relationships and precarious lifestyle saw her life tragically begin to unravel. Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the age of 27.
In his intro Questlove said that it was going to be hard to watch the film. He told attendees, “I have a know it all reputation for knowing music, but she knew way way more stuff than I did and every conversation was always a ‘let me top you on something’ so even until her last week it was like ‘I bet you don’t have this, do you know what this is?’ and I never knew what she was playing me, so I’m just very honored and blessed to have known her for that short period,” Examiner.com reported.
Kapadia added, “this has been a bit of a labor of love for a few of us. We made this previous film ‘Senna,’ the opportunity came along somebody said ‘would you be interested in making a film about Amy in the same way?’ and I’m a Londoner, I’m from North London, I grew up very close to where Amy lived, it all happening half a mile away from my door, and it just became for me it’s been a bit of a journey to try and understand her and understand the music and where it came from and also why things turned out the way they did, so really this film is a lot of questions that I had and hopefully the film will answer them and hopefully you will get to meet what a lot of people said to me – the real Amy. That’s what we tried to find, was the real Amy.” After the screening, guests mingled and reflected on the powerful film.”
A24 will open Amy in New York and Los Angeles on July 3, 2015 and Nationwide on July 10, 2015.
