It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley drowned on May 27th, 1997, the very day his band arrived in Memphis to start recording the musician’s eagerly awaited second album, marking a wrenching end to a promising career. With nearly two decades having passed since Buckley’s unexpected death, respected documentarian Amy Berg now tells his story in with a suitable blend of restraint, insight and emotion, opting for a clear chronological structure and aided considerably by the staggering access she has been granted by those who were close to him. She doesn’t just interview his mother, ex-partners, former bandmembers and many associates at length, but is also able to draw on their photographs, answering machine messages and personal artifacts, weaving them together with reams of archival footage, soundbites from Buckley himself and impressionistic montage and animation sequences that fill in the inevitable gaps. As the film moves through his unusual upbringing as the son of folk legend Tim Buckley, his first dabblings with music, his formative time in New York’s East Village and his eventual meteoric rise to fame, a portrait of a unique talent comes into view that is as infectious, engaging and heartfelt as its subject’s music. (James Lattimer)

Amy Berg: DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2006), WEST OF MEMPHIS (2012), AN OPEN SECRET (2014), EVERY SECRET THING (2014), PROPHET’S PREY (2015), JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE (2015), THE CASE AGAINST ADNAN SYED (2019), PHOENIX RISING (2022)