On Friday, Aretha Franklin was able to convince a judge to block a screening at the Telluride Film Festival of a documentary about her 1972 concert because the documentary did not have her written consent.
Franklin said that she had been fighting against the documentary “Amazing Grace” for years and that she was horrified to hear that it would be screened three times at the festival.
“For him to show that film, for him to completely and blatantly ignore me would be terrible,” she said of the film’s producer, Alan Elliot.
“For him to do that would encourage other people to do the same thing and have no respect for me.”
But attorneys for the film festival complained that the move for the cancellation had been so last-minute and further pointed out that it was entirely possible, based on a contract Franklin signed in 1968, that she had already signed away the rights to recordings of her concerts.
“There’s a real, substantial likelihood that Ms. Franklin does not own the rights to the images in that picture,” attorney Cecil Morris said. “It is not appropriate at the very last instant on a Friday afternoon before a 7:30 showing to seek this remedy.”
Although it is possible that the festival can seek an appeal, it would have to happen before Sunday, when the last of the screenings take place.
Franklin says in a statement issued Saturday: “Justice, respect and what is right prevailed and one’s right to own their own self-image.”
