The dazzling career of legendary singer-songwriter Luther Vandross gets revelatory reappraisal in Dawn Porter’s moving biographical documentary. In addition to making his own beloved hits (Never Too Much; Dance with My Father; Here and Now) the trailblazing soul artist was a titanic musical force in the 1980s and 90s, arranging and producing songs for a staggering range of artists: from David Bowie to Dionne Warwick and Mariah Carey, to name just a few.
Even before his life was cut tragically short at 54, Vandross suffered from media scrutiny about his weight and sexuality, and from pigeonholing within the music industry. Drawn from roughly four decades of interview and performance footage, as well as retrospective assessments by confidantes and artistic contemporaries, Luther is an eye-opening examination of a legacy that we are only now able to fully reckon with, and a reintroduction to music we can’t get enough of.
Presented by
Media Partner
Community Partner
Luther Vandross
USA
2024
English
At International Village
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Dawn Porter, Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman, Tom Mackay, Richard Story, Jon Platt
Producer
Trish D. Chetty, Ged Doherty, Jamie Foxx, Datari Turner, Leah Smith
Cinematography
Bryan Gentry
Editor
Mark Fason
Production Design
Chloe Reisen
Original Music
Robert Glasper
Dawn Porter
Dawn Porter is an American documentary filmmaker and the founder of the production company Trilogy Films. Her award-winning films include Gideon’s Army (2012), Trapped (2016), and Bobby Kennedy for President (2018). As a two-time Sundance Film Festival director, Porter’s work has been featured on HBO, Netflix, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, MTV Films, and other platforms. Dawn’s recent projects include The Lady Bird Diaries (2023) and Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court (2023), both of which garnered her nominations for two Critics Choice Awards and a Spirit Award.
Filmography: Gideon’s Army (2012); Spies of Mississippi (2014); Trapped (2016); The Way I See It (2020); The Lady Bird Diaries (2023)
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Once Upon a Time in Harlem splices together footage shot by William Greaves in 1972 of a group of Harlem Renaissance luminaries in conversation at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The film is a living archive of memory, disagreement, style, and Black genius.
Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
Alex Gibney's doc relates the near-lethal attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022, the writer's painful rehab and recovery, and his reflections on life before, during and after the publication of The Satanic Verses.
Possible Love
Lee Chang-dong’s first film since Burning (2018) is a sardonic, slow-burning satire about two couples: a documentary filmmaker married to a wealthy businessman, and a working-class family struggling to make ends meet after the husband has been laid off.
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al
House of Hope
"House of Hope" is the name of a Waldorf elementary school near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, founded by Manar and her husband Milad. This documentary follows their efforts to go about their lives before, during, and after the events of October 7.
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.