AWARDS
Academy Awards (Shortlist) Best Documentary, Best Original Song, Best Score; (Nominee) Best Original Song
ACE Eddie Awards (Nominee) Best Edited Documentary
American Cinematheque Tribute to the Crafts Honor Best Score
BAFTA Film Award (Nominee) Best Documentary
Critics Choice Documentary Awards (2 Wins, 6 Nominations):
Best Music Documentary (Winner)
Best Score (Winner)
Best Documentary Feature
Best Director
Best Cinematography
Best Editing
Chicago Indie Critics (Nominee) Best Documentary
Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Awards (Nominee) Best Documentary
Cinema Eye Honors Awards (Winner) The Unforgettables
Columbus Film Critics Association (Nominee) Best Documentary
Dallas Fort Worth Film Critics Association (Winner) Best Documentary
Denver Film Critics Society (Nominee) Best Documentary
GALECA Dorian Film Awards (Nominee) Documentary of the Year
Guild of Music Supervisors Award (Nominee) Best Original Song
Hawaii Film Critics Society (Nominee) Best Documentary
Houston Film Critics Society (Nominee) Best Documentary
Indiana Film Journalists Association (Nominee) Best Documentary
Las Vegas Film Critics Society (Nominee) Best Documentary
Middleburg Film Festival (Winner) Documentary Spotlight Award
Montclair Film Festival (2 Wins):
Documentary Filmmaker Award
Documentary Feature Audience Award
Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards (Nominee): Sound Editing, Music Editing
Music City Film Critics Association (Nominee) Best Documentary
NAACP Image Awards (Nominee) Outstanding Documentary
North Carolina Film Critics Association (Nominee) Best Documentary
North Dakota Film Society (2 Nominations): Best Documentary & Best Original Song
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle (Winner) Best Documentary
Philadelphia Film Festival (Winner) Documentary Feature Audience Award
Phoenix Critics Circle (Nominee) Best Documentary
Portland Critics Association (Nominee) Best Documentary
Producers Guild of America Awards (Winner) Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures
San Diego Film Critics Society (Nominee) Best Documentary
San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (Nominee) Best Documentary
Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards (2 Nominations): Outstanding Original Score, Outstanding Original Song
St. Louis Film Critics Association (Winner) Best Documentary
Utah Film Critics Association (Nominee) Best Documentary
Virginia Film Festival (2 Wins):
Directorial Achievement Award
Documentary Feature Audience Award
Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (Winner) Best Documentary
Woodstock Film Festival (Winner) Documentary Feature Audience Award
“American Symphony is about the creation of art in the face of pressure, tragedy and heartbreak, and about the tension between the glory of creation and the pain of living. It manages to capture the glory but it never ignores the price.”
- Steve Pond, The Wrap
“Documentarian Matthew Heineman does it again with American Symphony, crafting quite possibly one of the best love stories seen on film in over two decades, and not in the conventional way you believe it to be. Jon Batiste is the vessel of being human and how you live it, not just survive it.”
- Clayton Davis, Variety
“A celebration of art, resilience and the mutability of the human spirit, Matthew Heineman’s American Symphony never feels like it’s quite the documentary that its director intended it to be. Nor does it tell the story that featured star Jon Batiste presumably hoped to chronicle. But it’s all the more joyful and emotionally resonant for these deviations ”
- Daniel Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter
“One of the best documentaries of the year… an astonishingly honest love story about what it truly means to stand by someone in sickness and in health.”
- Katie Walsh, Tribune News
SYNOPSIS
Early in 2022, multi-instrumentalist Jon Batiste finds himself the most celebrated artist of the year with eleven Grammy nominations including Album of the Year. In the midst of that triumph, Jon is immersed in his most ambitious challenge yet: composing “American Symphony”, an original symphony that thrillingly reimagines the classical traditions of the form, bringing together an expansive and inclusive diaspora of music for a performance at storied Carnegie Hall. This extraordinary trajectory is upended, however, when Batiste’s life partner - best-selling author Suleika Jaouad - learns that her long dormant cancer has returned.
In the moving and deeply intimate AMERICAN SYMPHONY, Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning director Matthew Heineman delivers a portrait of two inimitable artists at a crossroad and a profound meditation on art, love, and the creative process.
DISTRIBUTION
AMERICAN SYMPHONY is a feature length documentary from Our Time Projects that premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival to critical acclaim and was acquired by Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground.
The film has continued to be a fan favorite at festivals around the country, winning multiple Audience awards, and receiving 6 Critics Choice nominations.
The film will be released in theaters on November 24th, and will be available to stream on Netflix starting on November 29th.