Two Different Avicii Documentaries Are Currently In Production: Everything We Know About Each

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Five years after Avicii‘s death, the story of his life and ongoing influence remains a hot topic, with two different Avicii documentaries currently in production.

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Announced in September of 2021, the first film will focus on Avicii’s rise, success and well-documented struggles with the pressure of that success. Produced by Swedish director and cinematographer Björn Tjärnberg and Candamo Film and filmed in cooperation with Swedish National Television, the documentary (a title for which has not yet been announced) is being shot by Swedish director Henrik Burman, who also directed the 2020 doc Yung Lean: In My Head. This documentary is set for release in 2023 and will have international distribution.

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A second Avicii documentary was announced last week. No official title or release date has been given, although a representative for the film notes that it’s currently in post-production.

This doc will focus on the creative partnership between Avicii and his former manager Ash Pournouri, with a press release calling the doc “a deeply personal look into the creative and professional partnership [that will] chronicle Ash Pournouri’s early discovery of Tim Bergling in 2008 to the creation and evolution of the Avicii brand.” This brand, of course, was a commercial juggernaut of the EDM era and the template many artists of the genre based their own business models on.

Pournouri and Avicii separated in 2016, the same year Avicii announced his retirement from touring. Two years later, on April 20, 2018, the producer died by suicide in Muscat, Oman.

The Pournouri-focused documentary is being produced by Lawrence Bender, whose credits include Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Bastards and the 2006 climate change doc An Inconvenient Truth. The film is also being produced and directed by Dutch director/talent manager Orlando John, with co-direction from Lithuanian director Jonas Trakunas.

Neither documentaries are official projects of the Avicii estate. Both will feature interviews with members of Avicii’s family, along with fellow artists and dance industry figures.

“My goal is to provide an honest and new perspective on both the artist Avicii and Tim’s life,” Burman said upon the 2021 announcement of his film. “I want this to be a film that surprises the audience and challenges the public’s image of Sweden’s biggest international artist of today and, in doing so, also shine a light on what his music has meant to so many people.”

Meanwhile, in a press release Orlando John notes that “People think they know the story but they have really no clue as to what actually happened. I feel a profound responsibility to ensure that its told accurately and objectivity. This documentary will give the audiences a deeper understanding of the brand that left an indelible mark on music and culture.”

These two documentaries come six years after release of the first Avicii documentary, True Stories. Capturing the producer in the era when he was winding down his touring schedule in the wake of his much publicized period of burnout, this unofficial documentary was controversial for its depiction of the producer born Tim Bergling in what turned out to be the latter part of his life. It is no longer available on Netflix and currently unavailable on Amazon in the U.S.

The Avicii story is also documented in the 2022 Avicii biography Tim. Written by Swedish investigative journalism Måns Mosesson, the book is based on his hundreds of interviews, with Mosesson also gaining access to Bergling’s personal texts and emails going back a decade. The Avicii Experience, a museum focused on Bergling’s rise, life, music and influence, opened in his native Stockholm last February.

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