In 1972, director Sydney Pollack filmed Aretha Franklin performing at a Los Angeles church backed by a gospel choir.
The resulting documentary, Amazing Grace, spent decades in development, remaining unedited until 2011 due to technical problems.
Even then, after completion, the film struggled to reach cinemas as the late singer’s estate fought over the footage, leading to the film being pulled from Telluride and Toronto film festivals in 2015
Variety reports that now, some 46 years after the concert took place, an agreement between the estate and producer Alan Elliott has been reached.
Amazing Grace will debut at the DOC NYC festival on 12 November and will be followed by an Oscar-qualifying cinema run in Los Angeles.
“In recent weeks, Alan presented the film to the family at the African American Museum here, and we absolutely love it,” Sabrina Owens, the executor of the Franklin estate, said.
“We can see Alan’s passion for the movie, and we are just as passionate about it. It’s in a very pure environment, very moving and inspirational, and it’s an opportunity for those individuals who had not experienced her in a gospel context to see how diverse her music is. We are so excited to be a part of this.”
The “queen of soul” died earlier this year, aged 76. The concert – which took place New Temple Missionary Baptist Church – was filmed over two nights as Franklin recorded her Amazing Grace album.
One of the multiple reasons the footage took so long to edit was Pollack’s refusal to use a clapper board. The tool was essential for the editing process in the pre-digital age and meant that syncing sound and film was an almost insurmountable challenge.
