June 1961, New York. Legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans has found his musical voice and created the perfect trio, including bass player Scott LaFaro, his musical soulmate. A residency at New York’s Village Vanguard culminates in the live taping of two of the greatest jazz records of all time in one day. Days later, LaFaro dies tragically in a car crash. Numb with grief, Evans stops playing for the first time since childhood. This is the story of what happened next for one of the most influential and gifted figures in 20th century music.
Cutting between Bill’s present and future, his sobriety and intoxication, and his relationships with his family and on again/off again girlfriend, who shares his taste in music and hard drugs, EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS portrays the inner life and personal impact of a troubled musical genius as he struggles to learn that sometimes an intermission is part of the music.
Production Credits
About the Artists
Grant Gee is a multi-award-winning director. He is currently in post-production on his fiction feature debut EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS about the legendary jazz pianist, starring Anders Danielsen Lie, Laurie Metcalf and Bill Pullman.
Grant’s most recent film The Gold Machine, produced by Janine Marmot, with writer Iain Sinclair, won the fIFFNY Outstanding Achievement in Documentary 2022 and streamed on MUBI. It completed a trilogy of acclaimed feature-documentaries that began in 2012 with Patience (After Sebald), which screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, and continued with Innocence of Memories, produced by Janine Marmot, (original narration by Nobel Laureate, Orhan Pamuk), which screened at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival and won the Master of Art Film Festival Award for Documentary in Literature 2015.
Grant regularly collaborates with theatre director Katie Mitchell, making films and Live Cinema projects at flagship European theatres and operas. These include Bluets for The Royal Court, London The Cherry Orchard for Deutsches Schauspielhaus and The Blue Woman for the Royal Opera House.
Most recently Grant worked as Video Director on Dead Centre’s Five Star reviewed Deaf Republic, which opened at the Royal Court, London before an acclaimed run at the Dublin Theatre Festival.
His documentary Joy Division premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, and won the Grierson Award 2008 for Best Cinema Documentary, the Mojo Vision Award 2009, CPH:DOX festival’s (Copenhagen) Sound and Vision Award for Best Music Film, and the Audience Awards for Best Film at both Gdansk and ‘In-Edit’ Barcelona (both 2008). He also directed the iconic clip for Radiohead’s No Surprises as well as the 500,000 DVD-selling film Meeting People is Easy about the band.
Grant is Mentor to the Master of Fine Arts course in Documentary Filmmaking at University College London.
Publicity Info
- Programme type: Curated Programme
- Genre: Film
- Duration: 102 minutes
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Ages:
18+(STRICTLY ADULTS ONLY)
