Back in 2010, the BAFTA-winning Senna made the filmgoing world sit up and take note of Asif Kapadia. Empire was quick to champion his F1 doc and acclaim him a likely heir to Errol Morris’s crown as a future documentarian great. Since then, he’s been squirrelled away working on a couple of documentary shorts and an untitled Amy Winehouse project. Well, that one has a name now – Amy – as well as a first poster and a July release date.
With Senna, Kapadia managed to enthral racing fanatics and petrol-phobes alike, coming at his subject from an outsider’s vantage point. He’ll be looking to repeat the trick with the much-loved, much-troubled singer, cutting through the tabloid white noise to get to the heart of what made Amy Winehouse tick – and occasionally, not tick – in her own words. It’ll follow her career and story up to her tragic death in 2011, aged 27.
The official synopsis promises unheard music, as well as a comprehensive rummage through the archives from Kapadia and his research team to unearth unseen footage. "A once-in-a-generation talent and a pure jazz artist in the most authentic sense, Amy wrote and sung from the heart using her musical gifts to analyse her own problems,” runs the rubric. "The combination of her raw honesty and supreme talent resulted in some of the most original and adored songs of the modern era."
See for yourself when Amy lands in UK cinemas on July 3.