+the news

Amy director feels tragic singer is always close by

Written by . Published: June 21 2015

Filmmaker Asif Kapadia is convinced he was destined to make a movie about Amy Winehouse because he has so many links to the tragic singer and her family, and hears her music in the strangest places.


Winehouse's father Mitch and her ex-boyfriend Reg Traviss have been scathing about Kapadia's documentary, Amy, but he insists he was the right person to make the film because he has a spiritual link to the Brit, who died in 2011, aged 27.


He tells WENN, "I was interested in making the film because Amy felt like the girl next door. While I was making the film, I find out that I weirdly enough I went to the same school as her parents. They lived down the road from where I live. Friends of mine went out with Amy but they never spoke about it because of who she became; it was almost embarrassing to them to talk about it.


"Where I live now, the school right at the tip of my house is where her pianist went to and where she learned to play piano. I thought, 'This is a really close connection'. Everyone who worked on the film in London was not that far away from Amy. She somehow connects everyone.


"I just got off the phone with a journalist and a busker was playing Valerie in the background. This happens all the time, wherever I go in the world - her song comes on and it throws you a bit... In a weird way I feel like she was always around. I never met her but she's been there and she keeps turning up again and again when you least expect it.


"I walked out of a screening in L.A. a couple of days ago near the Grammy museum and, as I walked out, I was talking to someone and I look on the ground and there's a star for Amy! And we were just coincidentally talking about her. This happens constantly."

Error! Unable to retrieve any Images!