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Leonard Cohen ’s signature song, “ Hallelujah ,” had its journey to music immortality stopped almost at birth by a record executive. The chief of Cohen’s label, Columbia, vetoed the finished album containing the track in 1984 because he considered it unmarketable in the United States. An intervention by an influential labelmate of Cohen’s, one Bob Dylan, helped “Hallelujah” to escape front-office purgatory and, over time, become the soaring secular hymn that musicians love to cover and listeners play at both weddings and funerals. RELATED: The Contenders Documentary – Deadline’s Full Coverage Dylan, in fact, might have been the first to cover the song. “Dylan loved ‘Hallelujah,’” filmmaker Dayna Goldfine said at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary event. Goldfine and her husband, Daniel Geller, are co-directors and co-writers of Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song , from Sony Pictures Classics . Pairing archival footage of Cohen himself with … [Read more...] about Singing The Praises Of ‘Hallelujah’ With A Film About Leonard Cohen’s Classic Song – Contenders Documentary

“You know you’re in a hit when you get messages from people you were at school with or people you haven’t heard from in a long time,” Bill Nighy said during the Sony Pictures Classics panel for Living at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event. He continued, “Everyone always says the same thing [in response to the film], which is they hit the street and they want to go do something they’re inspired to make the most of it. It’s a very inspirational film. It’s uplifting in the way that sometimes tragedy can be.” RELATED: The Contenders Film: Los Angeles – Deadline’s Full Coverage “Living” is director Oliver Hermanus ’ remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 critically acclaimed Ikiru , which was itself inspired by Tolstoy’s 1886 masterpiece The Death of Ivan Ilyich . The screenplay by Nobel-winning screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro examines a theme painfully applicable in any century: the reality that mostly we don’t consider life until we’re faced … [Read more...] about ‘Living’ Star Bill Nighy Finds Inspiration And Humor In His Role As A Dying Man – Contenders L.A.

Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary awards-season event kicks off Sunday at 8 a.m. PT and promises to open up distant lands and even a distant planet—no passport required. Click her to register for and watch today’s Contenders livestream. The terrain covered by the cast and creatives from our 20 participating films astonishes with its variety and range: an enclave of Delhi, India in All That Breathes , a remote section of Paraguay in Eami , and possibly an even more remote outpost of the Brazilian rainforest in Wildcat . Moscow is the ultimate destination of Navalny , the documentary about Russia’s imprisoned and poisoned opposition leader, and Descendant takes us to a neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama settled by survivors of the last slave ship known to have navigated U.S. waters. About 5,600 miles separate Moscow from Mobile, mere inches apart compared to the far-flung rendezvous point of Good Night Oppy , about NASA’s incredible mission that dispatched … [Read more...] about Contenders Film: Documentary Kicks Off Today With 20 Titles Aiming To Expand And Explain Our Worlds

Country music legend Tanya Tucker has been enjoying a career resurgence of late, a phenomenon due not only to her talent but also to the efforts of a fellow country superstar, Brandi Carlile. It was Carlile who helped convince Tucker to come out of semi-retirement and record While I’m Livin’ , her first album in 17 years. The process of making that record, and what it meant for Tucker to re-enter the spotlight, is documented in The Return of Tanya Tucker – Featuring Brandi Carlile , directed by Kathlyn Horan . RELATED: Contenders Documentary — Deadline’s Complete Coverage The film explores why Tucker, who shot to fame as a teenager with the hit single “Delta Dawn,” kept to the sidelines for so long. “She chose to step away. She had lost her parents. And a lot of what this film is, it’s an exploration of this grief process,” Horan explained during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary event. “She says she lost her mojo, and she didn’t … [Read more...] about Country Music Superstars Team To Make Magic In ‘The Return Of Tanya Tucker – Featuring Brandi Carlile’: Contenders Documentary