Billie_(2019_film)
Billie (2019 film)
Documentary film about Billie Holiday
Billie is a 2019 documentary film about Billie Holiday, written and directed by British filmmaker James Erskine.[2][3][4][5] The film is based around interviews recorded on audio cassettes through the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, researching a book on Holiday that was never completed because of Kuehl's death in 1978: her body was found on a Washington D.C. street, and she was deemed to have died by suicide, although that supposition is disputed by her family.[6][7][8] Erskine's documentary "is about both Holiday — as told through the voices of people who knew her — and Kuehl's obsession with crafting her biography."[8]
Kuehl's interviews were with friends, family members, band members, peers from 1930s Harlem, piano players, psychiatrists and a pimp.[7] Prominent figures from the jazz world who contributed recollections include Count Basie, Charles Mingus, Jo Jones and Sylvia Syms.[8]
The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September 2019.[9][10]