After Aretha Franklin was granted an emergency injunction that would stop the screening of the documentary “Amazing Grace” at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday, the Toronto International Film Festival has scuttled its planned screening of the film as well.
“They will not be showing the film at the Toronto International Film Festival,” Jon D. Cantor, one of Franklin’s attorneys at the firm Dykema Gossett, told TheWrap Tuesday.
“We are extremely disappointed that Toronto audiences will not be able to see this extraordinary piece of art,” the festival organizers said in an official statement. “The footage in the film is truly a cinematic treasure of twentieth century music and we hope global audiences will have opportunity to experience this film once a resolution is found.”
The screenings had been scheduled for Sept. 10, Sept. 12 and Sept. 20.
Moreover, Cantor said that the Chicago Film Festival has agreed not to screen the film either.
The Telluride Film Festival canceled Friday night’s scheduled screening of the Aretha Franklin concert film “Amazing Grace” following a U.S. District court ruling in favor of an emergency injunction filed by the singer.
Earlier on Friday, the R&B singer had filed a lawsuit against the festival for emergency injunctive relief to stop scheduled screenings of the documentary.
According to the lawsuit, the documentary film — about the recording of Franklin’s live double album of the same name — consists mostly of footage from the singer’s 1972 concert performance at the New Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, California, shot by director Sydney Pollack.
However, Franklin claimed she never granted permission to use the footage in “any commercial context, and has not authorized the public release of the footage.”