Global superstar Lisa, who rose to fame with Blackpink and is now balancing that group with a successful solo recording career and move into acting, is the subject of a documentary film in production from Sony Music Vision and director Sue Kim, it was announced Thursday night.
The news came during an upfront Sony Music Vision held in Hollywood to dive into a slate of music film projects that the company currently has in the works. Kim was on hand to discuss her movie about Lisa, as were fellow directors Baz Luhrmann, who spoke at length about a recently announced Elvis Presley documentary he has in the rough-cut stage, and Frank Marshall, who showed a few minutes of footage from his Barbra Streisand doc-in-progress.
Kim said she spent a year working with Lisa on the forthcoming film, for which no release date was given. The filmmaker’s previous acclaimed directorial work has been with less famous subjects, like A24’s “The Last of the Sea Women,” which premiered last fall at the Toronto Film Festival. But Kim did not come to the Lisa project as a K-pop novice; she was an executive producer on Apple TV+’s docuseries “K-Pop Idols.”
A trailer for the film shown during the presentation to industry pros included everything from concert footage of Lisa on stage performing her solo music to intimate footage of her with relatives. Kim said that at her very first meeting with Lisa, the singer immediately started texting a friend group from her pre-fame days, telling them she wanted them to be part of the documentary.
Said Lisa, in a statement announcing the project: “This has been such an incredible year and I’m so lucky to have the opportunity to capture these special moments on film and share the experience with my fans. Working with Sue Kim has been such a joy. We’ve been all around the world together and I know this is just the beginning of many more exciting things to come.”
“Following Lisa on this transformative and thrilling year has been a true honor and a cinematic gift,” said Kim, in the director’s own statement. “There have been so many moments on her journey that I think will surprise people and give a glimpse into her world that no one’s ever seen before. I’m excited for viewers to watch the film and witness this extraordinary moment in her life.”
The Lisa film is a production of Tremolo Productions in association with Salt Water Productions and LLOUD CO. The producers for the doc include Morgan Neville and Caitrin Rogers for Tremolo, and Sue Kim and Courtney Crockett for Salt Water Productions. Executive producers include Alice Kang, Joojong Joe for LLOUD CO.; Peter Edge, John Fleckenstein and Camille Yorrick for RCA Records; and Tom Mackay, Krista Wegener and Abby Davis for Sony Music Vision. The doc will be presented and distributed by Sony Music Vision in partnership with the RCA Records label.
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It follows the recent release by LLOUD CO./RCA of Lisa’s debut solo album, “Alter Ego.” After all the members of Blackpink took a year off to pursue solo efforts, the group is coming back together for a short tour scheduled for this year, presumably to be followed by a more prolonged reunion.
The singer also made her acting debut in the most recent season of “The White Lotus,” which was included in the trailer as one of the subjects to be broached in the documentary.
Luhrmann’s presentation of several minutes of footage from his “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” film — which was described as neither a concert film nor a documentary, but obviously is a hybrid of both — served as the climax of the Sony Music Vision upfront, with the filmmaker talking about the dozens of hours of previously unseen footage he sifted through. The director said he recently showed a rough cut of the film and was encouraged by the reaction of even non-Presley fans to a project that includes considerable audio of Presley talking about his life as well as on-stage and backstage footage from the ’50s through ’70s.
Sony Music Vision has been behind a recent streak of high-profile documentaries helmed by prestige directors, including Questlove’s Sly Stone doc, as well as the company’s remastered version of a vintage Pink Floyd concert film that this spring became its highest grossing big-screen release.
From Variety US