July 23, 2011, London. At 27, Amy Winehouse is found dead in her Camden Town home. She is a superstar thanks to her amazing voice, but her phenomenally successful album Back to Black cannot hide the weaknesses and shortcomings of this fragile young women who was tortured by her own body, her image and her incommensurable need for love. This documentary by Asif Kapadia retraces the life of this fleeting star.

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Asif Kapadia had has better luck with documentaries than fiction: in the wake of the horror flick The Return starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Far North starring Michelle Yeoh, he found success with Senna, about racecar driver Ayrton Senna. The subject matter of Amy is completely different, but just as successful. It opened in Cannes, revealing the doomed fate of Amy Winehouse, a superstar who exploded in mid-flight before the eyes of the media and all her fans. Thanks to an impressive amount of intimate archival footage, interviews and concert clips, the documentary is a heartbreaking portrait of a little girl who grew up to be an unforgettable star so extraordinary that the media scrutiny turned out to be too much for her. In addition to recording Winehouse’s amazing and tragic life, the movie’s morbid conclusion questions the role of the media and of success itself. For both fans and newcomers, Amy is deeply moving.