Franklin filed for an emergency injunction in court on Friday morning to prevent the screening of the film that contains footage from a 1972 concert in Los Angeles.
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Franklin says in a statement issued Saturday: “Justice, respect and what is right prevailed and one’s right to own their own self-image”.
However, after a 90-minute court hearing, U.S. District Judge John Kane granted the motion, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
According to Franklin, she learned that “Amazing Grace” would be screened in its full length at the film festival.
Fantastic Grace, about the singer’s album of the same name and heavily comprised of footage from a 1972 concert, was originally slated to be screened at Telluride on Friday night.
The judge thus guaranteed Franklin’s right to stop the video from being screened publicly without her permission.
“Alan Elliott, a former music producer who teaches at UCLA, had reclaimed the film seven years ago in the wake of Pollack’s passing, honoring a deathbed request from Pollack that Elliott finish the movie”.
This is the second time Franklin has sued over the 43-year-old performance at the New Missionary Baptist Church in LA that was shot by Pollack, who died in 2008.
Aretha Franklin has proceeded to file an injunction against the release and showing of the film, “Amazing Grace“, according to her publicist. Festival programmers replaced “Amazing Grace” with a screening of another Telluride offering, the documentary “Sherpa“, about Himalayan guides killed in an Everest expedition.
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Speaking of the ruling, Franklin’s attorney Fred Fresard said: “Aretha Franklin has spent over 50 years developing her art. Congress passed laws to protect artists like her”. I think the timing is very good now, especially behind Jersey Boys, Carole King [Beautiful]. The 43-year-old film directed by the late Oscar winning filmmaker Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa) has had a storied history but looked like it would finally see the light of day with a premiere at the 2015 Telluride Film Festival and a further showcase at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival. On the latter challenge for Franklin, she may be asked why monetary damages wouldn’t suffice in a claim for violation of her publicity rights.
