Jimi Hendrix Documentary Film Coming From ‘Greatest Night in Pop’ Director
A feature film documentary about the life of Jimi Hendrix is on the way. On Friday, the film’s producers announced that Bao Nguyen, the director behind The Greatest Night in Pop, will direct the upcoming film, Jimi.
“Telling the story of Jimi Hendrix during his pivotal years in London is both a profound honor and a unique responsibility,” Nguyen said in a statement. “I approach this project with deep respect for his legacy and the cultural significance he holds as an American original.”
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The documentary “will tell the story of a transformational period in music history when Jimi Hendrix set the world — and his guitar — on fire,” read a press release description. It’ll fellow the singer’s life from his start in the Sixties in London and his breakthrough at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
“Jimi’s time in London was some of the most pivotal in his life journey and his musical career,” said Jimi’s sister Janie in a statement. “The social scene, night life that often bled into day, connections made, decisions on where he wanted to take his music and where he wanted his music to take him; all of that became something of a roadmap for the course his life would take.”
Added Ngyen: “Through this film, I hope to capture the vibrant atmosphere of the 1960s music scene, and his meteoric rise to superstardom, culminating in the legendary show at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival – a triumphant homecoming where his incendiary performance didn’t just set his guitar alight – it ignited a cultural shift that changed the course of music history.”
Double Agent, Network Entertainment, and Experience Hendrix are behind the movie. (The new docu follows a 2020 documentary, Music, Money, Madness . . . Jimi Hendrix In Maui, which specifically covered the singer’s ill-fated film Rainbow Bridge.)
Along with directing The Greatest Night in Pop about the recording of 1985 “We Are the World,” Nguyen also helmmed several other documentaries including the Bruce Lee-focused Be Water.
“Just as Bao Nguyen has achieved in his films highlighting the lives of other iconic figures who influenced pop culture, this presentation of Jimi’s London experience will be inspiring and informative — a story told the way it should be,” Janie said.
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