A new documentary about singer Amy Winehouse will be screened during the Cannes Film Festival, but it will be without the support of her father and family. In a lengthy statement to the media, the Winehouse family said that the film “contains some basic untruths.”
Amy was first announced back in 2013 and was directed by Asif Kapadia, the same director behind the acclaimed 2010 documentary Senna on Formula 1 racer Ayrton Senna. A trailer was released earlier this month and was selected for a special Cannes screening next month.
Mitch sent a long statement to the BBC’s Newsbeat, claiming that some of the facts presented in the film are false. For example, the film claims that Mitch was not around to help Winehouse, which he denies. He also believes that the film is one-sided.
“These guys have decided what to put in and what not to put in. It's a two-hour film and you can't put everything, but there's a got to be an element of balance and there isn't any,” Mitch told the BBC. “My disappointment is that the film could have been terrific. They're going to look at this film and know the film's been tainted. And there's absolutely no reason for it to have been that way.”
A spokesman for the family also said that they want to “disassociate themselves” from Amy. “They feel that the film is a missed opportunity to celebrate her life and talent and that it is both misleading and contains some basic untruths,” the statement reads.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mitch also told The Sun that Winehouse would have been “furious” if she saw it.
The producers of Amy said that they did have the family’s full support while making it and stressed that they did 100 interviews with people that knew the singer. “The story that the film tells is a reflection of our findings from these interviews,” they said.
Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning in 2011. She was just 27 and had only released two full albums before her death.
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