Fresh from playing in Cannes to a rapturous critical reception, Asif Kapadia's Amy Winehouse doc, Amy, has a new trailer to share with its public. There'll be plenty more fanfare to come, so we'll keep it to a minimum here. Click below to take a look.
A project originally pitched to him by Kapadia's Senna producer James Gay-Rees, Amy was born out of a film the director put together for the 2012 Olympics. Like that short, it's a London film through-and-through and one that tells the story of the young jazz musician-turned-paparazzi bait from grassroots to tragically early grave.
"I didn't have a negative or particularly positive opinion [of who Amy was]," remembers Kapadia, "but it all changes when someone calls you up and says, 'What do you reckon? Would you be interested in making a film?' That's when it clicks. I thought, 'I feel like she could have grown up down the road. I feel like she is someone I could have known.' Despite some very obvious similarities, Winehouse offered a contrasting, more relatable subject matter to Senna. "She was an ordinary North London person, whereas Senna was from another planet," Kapadia tells Empire. "Also, it felt very much like a film about London. I lived in Kentish Town and used to walk through Camden everyday to go to Soho, so it was in a universe that was very close to home, as opposed to the mega-money and helicopters of Formula One."
The result, an enthralling, often heartbreaking piece of storytelling, arrives in UK cinemas on July 3.