When Amy Winehouse died in 2011 at the age of 27, few people who had paid any attention to the singer’s very public struggles with drug addiction could feign surprise. But for her fans, of course, that didn’t make the loss any less heartbreaking—the British singer was a true original in the mainstream music scene, with a husky, soulful voice that paired equally well with catchy jazz-infused tracks and ’60s-flavored pop. (Her songwriting, too, was often much darker and sadder than that of her contemporaries and successors like Lily Allen and Adele: “This face in my dreams seizes my guts, he floods me with dread,” she laments in “Wake Up Alone.”)
The trailer for the upcoming documentary, Amy, taps into that sense of loss simply: Over the gloomy, isolated vocals of “Back to Black,” Winehouse muses on her identity as a singer and her connection to songwriting. When asked by an interviewer, “How big do you think you’re going to be?” she responds, “I don’t think I could handle it, I would probably go mad.” All the while, images of Winehouse throughout her life weave in and out hauntingly.
It’s an emotionally affecting preview of what fans can expect from director Asif Kapadia, best known for the documentary Senna, about the late Brazilian Formula One racer Ayrton Senna. The film is set for release in the U.K. in July on the anniversary of Winehouse’s death, though there’s no official word yet on when it will make its way to the U.S.
Update, April 3, 2015: A24 has acquired Amy for U.S. distribution and will release the film this summer.
