More than 40 years ago, Aretha Franklin recorded her Grammy-award-winning live album Amazing Grace, which remains to this day her best-selling LP. Late director Sydney Pollack also filmed the 1972 concert where it was recorded, and now, after spending decades seemingly lost to history, the footage has finally been made into a documentary.
The concert was filmed at the New Temple Missionary Church in Los Angeles with a few cameramen, capturing the energy, the ’70s garb, and Mick Jagger rocking out to Franklin’s powerhouse pipes. (You can spot Jagger—a huge Franklin fan who signed with Atlantic Records in part because they had the Queen of Soul—at 1:57.) Amazing Grace will premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, but whether it will get a commercial release is still up in the air.
Update, August 20, 2015: A producer has written to tell us that the movie will get a commercial release.
