Donna Summer is the subject of a documentary that will chronicle her rise from church singer to disco queen – and it will play out on big and small screens.
Love to Love You, Donna Summer has been billed as a “deeply personal portrait” of the singer, who found fame in the 1970s and performed until her death in 2012 aged 63.
The documentary will premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in March before being available to stream on HBO and HBO Max from May.
Born in Boston, Summer left her native US for a stage career in Germany in the late 1960s after a record label passed up the chance to sign her blues band. While in Munich she met producer Giorgio Moroder and the pair set to work on a new sound that would shape dance music for years to come. The hits that followed, Love to Love You Baby, I Feel Love, Hot Stuff and Last Dance, established her as a worldwide star.
The film is directed by Roger Ross Williams, an Oscar and Emmy winner, and Brooklyn Sudano, one of Summer’s daughterS. It will contain archive footage, photos and home videos, and will explore her relationships and hobbies, such as painting. Summer was twice married and left behind her husband, Bruce Sudano, and three daughters, one by her first husband.
HBO said: “Shaped by Summer’s own reflections, the memories of close family, friends and colleagues, and filled with the sounds of Summer’s songs, Love to Love You, Donna Summer is an in-depth look at the iconic artist as she creates music that takes her from the avant-garde music scene in Germany to the glitter and bright lights of dance clubs in New York, to worldwide acclaim, her voice and artistry becoming the defining soundtrack of an era.
“[It is a] deeply personal portrait of Summer on and off the stage, the film features a wealth of photographs and never-before-seen home video footage – often shot by Summer herself – and provides a rich window into the surprising range of her artistry, from songwriting to painting, while exploring the highs and lows of a life lived on the global stage.”
