The Jimi Hendrix biopic All Is by My Side, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, is searching for a distributor.
The music biography, directed and written by John Ridley, is hoping to find a distributor after screening at TIFF, The New York Times reports. The lines for the screening wrapped around the block.
Ridley, who also wrote 12 Years A Slave, told fans, "A film like this does not happen by accident." The hope is to bring back music biographies, which have been struggling as of late, several even falling apart before getting too far into production.
As Ridley looks for a distributor, he avoided the expensive issue of music rights by doing an origin story instead of focusing on his more popular music. The songs were written by others and performed by Andre Benjamin, who plays Hendrix in the biopic.
Early reviews for the film have been tilting positive, though the main complaint is that it's not as good as it could have been since it doesn't use his songs. According to Huffington Post that is due to Hendrix's estate's refusal to be involved with the movie.
John DeFore of Billboard said what audiences "get is a film both thoughtful and convincing, sympathetic but not flattering to a man who had just three years after this period's end to make himself immortal."
He also found Benjamin to be good as Hendrix. "Benjamin needn't be confined to comedy and genre roles where charisma is all that's required."
It will be interesting to see if the packed crowd and the screening will prove enough to attract a distributor.
image: Wikimedia Commons
