Aretha Franklin: Amazing Grace (2018)

Film screening in English with Hungarian subtitles.

After the fresh Anglo-Saxon music films in spring, the autumn 2025 Rockfilmclub autumn line-up includes three feature-length documentaries, some of them older. In October, the journey to stardom of Janis Joplin, the hippies' number one feminine symbol, will be explored through contemporary footage, documents and the recollections of those who knew her. In November, the Oscar-nominated two-and-a-half-hour film Background Music to a Coup d'état takes us through the 1960s independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Cold War and post-colonial Africa, the duplicity of Western European politics and the best jazz recordings of the era. And in December, one of the greatest soul divas of all time takes place in January 1972 at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles, a predominantly black neighborhood, with Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir accompanying Aretha Franklin (directed by Sydney Pollack).

The greatest soul diva of all time, Aretha Franklin decided in January 1972, at the height of her popularity, to return to her early days of singing gospel in churches. With more than 20 albums, five Grammy awards and eleven chart-topping songs - including Respect, Think and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman - behind her, she and her band visited the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, the site of perhaps the largest riot in modern America, which in August 1965 left 34 dead and cost $40 million, when white supremacists and the police took over the streets of the city. The two-day event, which featured the double Amazing Grace, the biggest-selling gospel album of all time, was also attended by Sydney Pollack and her crew.