Classically trained pianist, dive-bar chanteuse, black power icon and legendary recording artist, Nina Simone lived a life of brutal honesty, musical genius, and tortured melancholy. In this epic documentary, director Liz Garbus interweaves never-before-heard recordings and rare archival footage together with Nina's most memorable songs, to create an unforgettable portrait of one of the least understood, yet most beloved, artists of our time.
The film uses never-before-heard audio tapes, recorded over the course of three decades, of Nina telling her life story to various interviewers and would-be biographers. From over 100 hours of these recordings, WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? weaves together Nina's narrative, told largely in her own words. Rare concert footage and archival interviews, along with diaries, letters, interviews with Nina's daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, friends and collaborators, along with other exclusive materials, make this the most authentic, personal, and unflinching telling of the extraordinary life of one of the 20th Century's greatest recording artists.
Academy Award?-nominated director Liz Garbus is a leading US documentary filmmaker and cofounder of Moxie Firecracker Films, under which she has produced over 15 films. Recent works include Love, Marilyn; the Emmy?-nominated Bobby Fischer Against the World; There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane and Girlhood. Her first film, The Farm: Angola, USA, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Oscar®, and won two Primetime Emmy Awards.
