I’m very, very excited, and proud to finally share the official trailer of Billie! I’ll not even begin saying how honored I am for the opportunity to bring these images back to life for the first time because then I’d start crying. The doc showcases the restored and newly colorized archival photographs and videos, which will be paired with around 200 hours of unreleased interviews.
Billie director James Erskine said the goal of the project was not only to “make sense of [Holiday’s] enigma,” but ensure that viewers “felt her presence all the way throughout it.” He continued: “We had the images and footage, of course, and we pulled together her surviving audio interviews, but what was essential to me was to make sure there was enough room in the film to sit back and admire her power, her genius, and also to ensure the audience grasped that Billie’s story was told through the songs she sang. Taking the narrative of Billie, blending it with a coherent music structure and then tracing out her life and her changing image was the essence of the film.”
Billie will be released in theaters and on virtual cinema on November 13th.