Streaming
Please note: This event took place in May 2020
Sydney Pollack’s concert film of Aretha Franklin’s two-night recording session at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in 1972 didn’t see the light of day due to numerous issues including synching sound and image… until now. Watch Aretha with wonder as a singer at the height of her powers returns to the music which nurtured her prodigious talent, and in the process produces the best-selling gospel album of all time. Her rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’ is one of the most sensational concert film performances ever captured.
Our Cinema Curator Mark Cosgrove says:
"This documentary of Aretha Franklin singing gospel songs transports you to a higher plane and is a tonic for the soul in these turbulent times. It might never have been. When it was recorded the filmmakers didn’t use a clapperboard necessary to synch sound and image. Hours of film footage sat alongside but separate from hours of audio tape. Digital technology and painstaking research have brought this tremendous performance back together. Aretha is not singing for the congregation, for the camera or for us she is singing to God and the power and beauty of her voice takes you there. When we screened it at Watershed we had local gospel choir Sing With Soul introduce and then call and respond in the cinema. It is one of the most special moments I’ve experienced in the cinema."