Aretha film can finally be seen

More than 46 years after it was shot, the Aretha Franklinconcert film Amazing Grace will finally be released, ending one of the most tortured and longrunning sagas in documentary film.

Amazing Grace will premiere Nov. 12 at the DOC NYC film festival with the full support of Franklin’s estate. The film, largely shot by Sydney Pollack, captures Franklin’s performance at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles’s Watts neighbourhood in January 1972.

The music from the two performances was released as a landmark double live album in 1972. But Pollack’s footage proved virtually impossible to edit because the filmmaker failed to sync the sound. After acquiring the film rights from Pollack in 2007, producer Alan Elliott brought in a team to construct the film.

But Franklin sued Elliott in 2011 for planning to release the film without her permission. Amazing Grace was also yanked at the last minute from the Telluride and Toronto film festivals in 2015 after Franklin’s lawyers obtained an injunction against its release.

An Oscar-qualifying release of Amazing Grace is planned for this fall, with a larger rollout in theatres likely coming next year. The film doesn’t yet have distribution.