96” - Theatrical Release

Director: James Erskine

New Black Films

Billie Holiday, one of the greatest voices of all time, a woman with a remarkable talent and global popularity, she achieved so much in her short life. A black woman in a white man’s world, she wasn’t a victim, she was the leading lady, performing protest songs, “Strange Fruit” which would eventually lead to her demise, garnering enemies.

In the late 1960’s, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl set out to write the definitive biography of Holiday’s life. For over a decade, she tracked down and recorded interviews with those who knew Billie Holiday personally and professionally. Raw, emotional and brutally honest, these testimonies from Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Count Basie to Holiday’s cousins, school friends, lovers, lawyers, pimps and the FBI agents who arrested her help us understand the woman behind the voice and story. Kuehl never finished the book and the tapes unheard - until now.

With unprecedented and exclusive access to Kuehl’s 2000 hours of never-before-heard interviews, and Billie presented in colour for the first time, BILLIE is a tale of one of the greatest singers to live, and the woman who dedicated her life in the pursuit of writing it.

REVIEWS

Evening Standard - “This tantalising documentary approaches the life of trail-blazing jazz singer Billie Holiday from the most oblique of angles”

The Times - “It’s a richly rewarding film, and the best music doc since Amy”

NME - “A rich yet heartbreaking documentary on all-time great Billie Holiday”

iNews - “Eye-poppingly compelling”

BBC Radio 2 - “It’s a layered film, it’s a rich film, of course it’s a heartbreaking one, but a really eye-opening one”

WATCH IT ONLINE HERE