“Amy” by Asif Kapadia (2015)

Documentaries are my favourite genre. And documentaries related to music personae in particular.

Kapadia got access to private archives of Amy Winehouse’s family and friends. Thanks to that, we received an in depth presentation of who Amy Winehouse was prior to releasing her hit album Back to Black which turned her life upside down.

In one of the first scenes Amy sings a simple “Happy Birthday” to her friend filming her. She was 14 at the time and her voice already gave incredible chills to my spine.
Her voice was great, she was a hard working musician throughout her career, however, unfortunately, she was prone to influences, which led her to drugs and alcohol addictions.
From the film, we find out through the words of none other but Tony Bennett himself, that Amy Winehouse was a great jazz vocalist.

The film is a bit too long, also I was missing the hard data of numbers – e.g. it is not stated when she was born, and how old she was when she passed. The general knowledge is that she joined the infamous 27 Club. At the age of 27 she died of alcohol poisoning. And that was the age that many other great artists passed away. Such as Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Kobain…

Great film telling the story of a tragic and incredibly sensitive artist – Amy Winehouse. A great watch.

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Manhattan by Woody Allen

The classic, considered by some one of the best films of the century.

At the BFI screening, the cinema was packed as during film festivals.

Black&White, with – as always – incredible dialogues and great actors.

Made in 1979, it bears the magic of 1970’s and yet the dialogues are brilliantly universal and could easily be imagined as uttered these days by contemporary snobbish New Yorkers.

Great cinema, accompanied by music by George Gershwin and fantastic shots of Manhattan.

A Thousand Kisses Deep by Dana Lustig

This film is technically perfect which allows for total immersion into the story told. The script is a masterpiece, acting superb and the omnipresent music an additional almost flesh&blood protagonist.

The title is a direct quotation from Leonard Cohen’s famous song, obviously.

It is a powerful cinema which is deeply thought through and very carefully executed. A magic story of a life long infatuation and going back in memory of a young woman who has to cope with two deaths in her close proximity and bravely carry on with her life.

An absolute must see for those idealists who still believe in the beauty and power of story telling through cinematic techniques – like myself.