WINEHOUSE DOC GOES OVER BIG AT CANNES

Amy, Asif Kapadia’s new Amy Winehouse documentary, drew critical raves at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called it “stunningly moving and powerful: intimate, passionate, often shocking, and almost mesmerically absorbing.”

In Variety, Guy Lodge wrote, "Boasting the same depth of feeling and breadth of archival material that made Kapadia's Senna so rewarding, this immersive portrait will hit hard with viewers who regard Winehouse among the great lost voices not just of a generation, but of an entire musical genre."

The two-hour doc, which will be released in July, has already made waves in Britain, The New York Times notes. Mitchell Winehouse, Amy’s father, has disassociated himself from it, saying it places too much blame on him for the addictions that helped kill his daughter, whose left arm was inked with “Daddy’s Girl.”

Kapadia has defended the film, which had the support of UMG and draws on extensive interviews with the singer’s parents, colleagues and friends.

In the film, no less an authority than Tony Bennett compares Winehouse to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. “She was a natural, a true jazz singer… She had the complete gift.”