Amazing Grace Still - H 2015
Courtesy of Amazing Grace Movie LLCAretha Franklin has filed an amended complaint against producer Alan Elliott “to stop the unauthorized release and showing for commercial purposes” of Amazing Grace, a documentary which features footage from the singer’s 1972 gospel concert at New Missionary Baptist Church.
The new complaint alleges Elliott held a screening for buyers in Toronto, though the film was removed from the official festival lineup. It states that the alleged screening “violates Ms. Franklin’s contractual and statutory rights, her rights to use and control her name and likeness, and represents an invasion of her privacy.”
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Franklin originally filed the lawsuit before the doc was scheduled to premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. The singer was controversially granted a temporary injunction to block the screening, and Amazing Grace was subsequently pulled from the lineup of the Chicago Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival.
The new complaint additionally pleads a declaratory judgment for “the right to control the use of her name and likeness” and requests that “the footage of her 1972 gospel concert may not be used by Mr. Elliott without her explicit authorization.”
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Franklin is also now seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction barring Elliott “his agents, employees and all those working in concert with him, from publicly releasing or using for commercial purposes of the film” any of Franklin’s documented gospel concert footage.
Aretha Franklin’s Amended Complaint
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