HBO is on a roll with rock lately. They presented the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert earlier this year, and more recently, the Concert for Valor, which featured Metallica. And of course there’s Sonic Highways, the Foo Fighters series that, in addition to promoting their new album, helped spark some interest in Kyuss’ Blues for the Red Sun. Next year, however, the network is going to present something that has the makings of being one of the most interesting rock documentaries in some time: Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck.
The documentary will be the first fully-authorized documentary about the late Nirvana frontman, who committed suicide 20 years ago in 1994. The film, which is being co-produced by HBO Documentary Films and Universal Pictures International Entertainment Content Group, was written, directed and produced by Brett Morgen, who’s also worked on HBO’s Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane. It also features an executive producer that will likely feature heavily in the doc: Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain. The film will debut exclusively on HBO in the United States.
“I started work on this project eight years ago,” says Morgen. “Like most people, when I started, I figured there would be limited amounts of fresh material to unearth. However, once I stepped into Kurt’s archive, I discovered over 200 hours of unreleased music and audio, a vast array of art projects (oil paintings, sculptures), countless hours of never-before-seen home movies, and over 4000 pages of writings that together help paint an intimate portrait of an artist who rarely revealed himself to the media.”
The film is said to feature dozens of Nirvana songs and performances and previously-unheard originals from Cobain. As the first documentary made with the cooperation of Cobain’s family, it will also feature artwork, photography and home movies that have never been seen before, like the above photo.
