SXSW: ‘Finding Lucinda’ Documentary Lands at Freestyle Digital Media (Exclusive)

Etan Vlessing
·1 min read
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Timed to SXSW, Freestyle Digital Media has picked up the North American rights to the music-driven documentary Finding Lucinda.

Directed by Joel Fendelman, the road movie follows singer-songwriter Ismay, also known as Avery Hellman, on a quest to track down her hero and music icon Lucinda Williams and the people and places that shaped her early career. The doc, which premiered at the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, is set for a fall 2024 release by the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group.

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Finding Lucinda features interviews with Charlie Sexton — who played with Williams when he was 11 years old and she was a little-known songwriter in Austin — Buddy Miller, Mary Gauthier, Josh Baca and Max Baca of Los Texmaniacs, Wolf Stephenson and John Grimaudo, Williams’ guitarist from her first record.

The film was written by Fendelman and Hellman, and produced by Liz McBee, Chuck Prophet and Jennifer Steinman Sternin. Marco Hellman, Avery Hellman and Alan Berg serve as executive producers.

“Working on Finding Lucinda gave me the extraordinary opportunity to truly understand what gives an artist their voice,” Avery Hellman, the granddaughter of the late Warren Hellman, who founded San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and often had Lucinda Williams performing, said in a statement.

“Over four years our whole team dove deep into finding out how place, upbringing and a commitment to craft made Lucinda Williams the astounding artist she is today,” Hellman added.

Freestyle Digital Media negotiated the distribution deal for Finding Lucinda directly with Fendelman and Hellman.

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