WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?

A Netflix Documentary
A RadicalMedia Production
In Association with Moxie Firecracker
WHAT HAPPENED,
MISS SIMONE?
A Film by Liz Garbus
Sundance Press Contact:
Susan Norget Film Promotion
Susan Norget / Rob Scheer
NY: 212-431-0090 / Cell: 917-833-3056
susan@norget.com / rob@norget.com
SYNOPSIS
Classically trained pianist, dive-bar chanteuse, black power icon and legendary recording artist, Nina
Simone lived a life of brutal honesty, musical genius and tortured melancholy. In this epic documentary,
director Liz Garbus interweaves never-before-heard recordings and rare archival footage together with
Nina’s most memorable songs, to create an unforgettable portrait of one of the least understood, yet
most beloved, artists of our time.
WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? uses recently unearthed audiotapes, recorded over the course of
three decades, of Nina telling her life story to various interviewers and would-be biographers. From
over 100 hours of these recordings, the film weaves together Nina’s narrative, told largely in her own
words. Rare concert footage and archival interviews, along with diaries, letters, interviews with Nina’s
daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, friends and collaborators, along with other exclusive materials, make this
the most authentic, personal and unflinching telling of the extraordinary life of one of the 20th century’s
greatest recording artists.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
What happened, Miss Simone? Specifically, what happened to your big eyes that quickly veil to hide
the loneliness? To your voice, that has so little tenderness, yet overflows with your commitment to the
battle of Life? What happened to you?
– Dr. Maya Angelou, 1970, Redbook magazine
I started making films in the late 1990s in prisons. First, at Louisiana State Penitentiary, a slave
plantation turned maximum-security prison. After The Farm, I went westward to Oklahoma, where I
made a film called The Execution of Wanda Jean, about the first African-American woman to be
executed by the United States in the modern era of capital punishment. Other films explored social
justice and the criminal justice system, like Girlhood, about girls in and out of juvenile institutions in
Baltimore, and Shouting Fire, about the price of preserving freedom of speech. And then I moved from
the prisons of America into prisons of the mind. I made a film about the mad genius of Bobby Fischer in
Bobby Fischer Against The World, and then the story of the inner world of a fierce yet fragile woman
named Marilyn Monroe, in Love, Marilyn. I draw this trajectory because it all feels very clear to me now
that this work was leading to this one new place, this one new film – the story of a little understood but
much-loved genius named Nina Simone.
In What Happened, Miss Simone?, all the themes I had been exploring in documentaries for 15 years
have merged symphonically in one extraordinary life. Nina Simone's brilliance would forever change the
musical landscape and yet she never fully got her due. She struggled against demons from both within
and without, and her life was both a reflection of the legacy of racism in America as well as an
extraordinary example of the power a righteous voice can bring to bear against even the most wicked
historical legacies. I didn’t know it at the outset, but it is clear to me now that What Happened, Miss
Simone? is the film I had been practicing my whole life to make.
The project came to me from Justin Wilkes at RadicalMedia, who had been approached by Nina’s only
child, Lisa Simone Kelly, and the Estate of Nina Simone, to produce a film about Nina. After years of
considering various projects and pitches from filmmakers, they were finally ready to allow Nina’s story
to be told. I had always been a huge fan of Nina’s music – my husband will recall I had her album “Little
Girl Blue” playing the first time he came over to my apartment for dinner – but I didn’t know her life
story. When Radical reached out to me, I picked up her autobiography, “I Put A Spell on You,” written
by Nina with the help of Stephen Cleary. I read it in two hours. I was spellbound. This was my dream
project.
Once I began speaking to those who knew Nina, I began to see her as a brilliant gem with many facets,
some more craggy than others. Through conversations with Lisa, I began to appreciate how tough it
was to grow up as Nina’s daughter. In talking to her closest friends, like Gerrit de Bruin and Al
Schackman, I came to understand both her intense charisma and loyalty, as well as the fact that she
could shift instantly, without warning, towards rage and mistrust. In talking to her musicians and
colleagues, I learned yet another side – a startling, once-in-a-lifetime kind of musical genius that defied
classification. And underneath it all, I discovered the child prodigy who had grown up under the tutelage
of white matrons in the Jim Crow South, cut off from normal social life and relations, who chafed for
most of her life from untreated and undiagnosed mental illness. Nina herself lived a life of unflinching
honesty. I needed, with this film, to strive for that level of complexity. How to tell this story, and be true
to all these facets of her, in a narrative of approximately 100 minutes?
The answer, for me, was to start with HER. Her voice. So, along with my extraordinary team of
producers, we began to comb the earth for all remnants of Nina telling her story. Radio interviews, TV
interviews, backstage chats at performances… Diaries, letters, notebooks left behind… At some point
in October, 2013, about a month into research, it occurred to me: Could Stephen Cleary, the co-writer
of her autobiography, have taped his conversations with her? I tracked him down – he was at that
moment working in Australia – and after several unanswered emails he finally responded. Did he tape
the interviews with Nina that were the basis of her autobiography? Yes. Did he still have those tapes?
Hard to know. But if they existed, they would be in his home in France, in the Pyrenees, where he
would not return for several weeks. Upon his return home, my pestering unanswered emails continued,
until finally, on New Year’s Day, 2014, I got an email from him with the subject: “Happy New Year’s
News.” He had found the tapes – 25.5 hours of Nina talking about her life. My producer, Amy Hobby,
was soon on a plane to France with her DAT machine to copy and protect Stephen’s archive.
This only made us more determined. Hadn’t she spent time with some University of Nebraska students
in the late 1960s, who were writing about her, and had they kept their tapes? Hadn’t she started to work
on her autobiography in the 1970s, only to abandon that project? What happened to those tapes? Of
course, visual materials were very much in our sights as well. We re-mastered the work print of a 1968
NYU student film, shot at the New York club the Village Gate, in order to view every frame of Nina from
that era. We visited a friend of Nina’s in Switzerland who kept pictures from their years together in a
shack in the woods a few hours outside of Zurich. We found never-before-seen interviews with her late
husband from an aborted documentary project. It didn’t all come up roses – there was heartbreak along
the way. Chief amongst them was the fire that destroyed the dailies and outtakes from the 1968 student
film. But I can say with some confidence that we left no Nina stone unturned; it was a worldwide
scavenger hunt covering 40 years of materials.
Focusing on Nina’s own voice also led me to decide to keep the number of interviews I would conduct
very limited. While many famous musicians have credited Nina as a key artistic influence, I didn’t want
to make a biopic with celebrities talking about other celebrities. I wanted to talk only to those whose
recollections would feel as intimate as the incredible archival recording we had unearthed. I wanted this
to be the inside story, coming purely from Nina’s own voice and those in her life who knew her most
closely. Working with cinematographer Igor Martinovic, we developed a shooting style for the interviews
that would keep them feeling tied to the archival world of the film, finding the one Cooke lens in the U.S.
that still had uncoated glass.
Bringing this film into the world now, in January 2015, I am aware of the ripeness of this historical
moment. A spark has been re-ignited in the civil rights movement by the high-profile killings of unarmed
black men by the white police. In recent months, the streets of Ferguson, Missouri looked not unlike
those of Selma, Mississippi, where Nina played, amidst threats of mortal danger, her rousing anthem
“Mississippi Goddam.” Late in her life, Nina mourned the death of the movement, and of its leaders,
lamenting that her civil rights songs were not relevant anymore. Today, “Mississippi Goddam” feels as
relevant as ever. I wish she were here to inspire us with her music, her incisive words and unrelenting
commitment to truth and justice. As Maya Angelou summed up in her article about Nina in Redbook:
“She is loved or feared, adored or disliked, but few who have met her music or glimpsed her soul react
with moderation. She is an extremist, extremely realized.” I wonder if it’s too much to hope that in
witnessing her life, other artists may be moved to step into the great void she left behind.
– Liz Garbus
NINA SIMONE BIOGRAPHY
Raw, passionate and provocative, Nina Simone was one of the most legendary artists of the 20th
century, an icon of American music. She was the consummate live performer who could spellbind her
audience into an almost religious reverie. Her distinctly emotional style had an appeal that crossed race
and gender boundaries, while blending elements of jazz, gospel, blues, soul, folk and classical music.
But she was as well known for her outspoken politics and tempestuous presence, on and off the stage,
as for her immense talent.
When Nina Simone died on April 21, 2003, she left a timeless treasure trove of music spanning more
than four decades and forty albums, from her first hit, the 1959 classic “I Loves You Porgy,” to “A Single
Woman,” the title cut from her 1993 Elektra album. While thirty-three years separate those recordings,
the element of honest emotion is the glue that binds the two together – an approach that became
Nina’s uncompromising musical trademark.
Born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on February 21, 1933, Nina’s prodigious talent as a
musician was evident early on when she started playing piano at the age of three. Her mother, a
Methodist minister, and her father, a handyman, couldn’t ignore young Eunice’s natural gift of music.
Able to play virtually anything by ear, she was soon studying classical music with an Englishwoman
named Muriel Mazzanovich, who had moved to the small southern town. It was from these humble
roots that Eunice developed a lifelong love of Johann Sebastian Bach, Chopin, Brahms and
Beethoven. After graduating at the top of her high school class, the community raised money for a
scholarship for Eunice to study music at the Juilliard School in New York City before applying to the
prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her family had already moved to Philadelphia, but
Eunice’s hopes for a career as a pioneering African-American classical pianist were dashed when the
school denied her admission. To the end, she would claim that racism was the reason she was
rejected.
To survive, she began teaching music to local students. In 1954, looking to supplement her income,
Eunice auditioned to sing at the Midtown Bar & Grill in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Word spread about
this new singer and pianist who was dipping into the songbooks of George Gershwin, Cole Porter and
the like, transforming popular tunes of the day into a unique synthesis of jazz, blues and classical
music. Her rich vocal tones, combined with her mastery of the keyboard, soon attracted club-goers up
and down the East Coast. To hide the fact from her family that she was singing in bars, Eunice
Waymon took the stage name Nina Simone – “Nina” came from a nickname meaning "little one" in
Spanish, and "Simone" after the actress Simone Signoret.
Nina began recording music in the late 1950s under the Bethlehem label. Her first full album in 1958,
"Little Girl Blue,” included one of her few Top 40 hits, her version of "I Loves You Porgy" from the
Gershwin musical “Porgy and Bess.” At the same New York City recording session, Nina also cut “My
Baby Just Cares For Me,” previously recorded by Nat King Cole and Count Basie, which became a
staple of her repertoire for the rest of her career.
Nina Simone’s stay with Bethlehem Records was short-lived and in 1959, after moving to New York
City, she was signed by Colpix Records, a division of Columbia Pictures. Months after the release of
her debut LP for the label (1959‘s “The Amazing Nina Simone”), Nina was performing at her first major
New York City venue, the prestigious Town Hall. Sensing that her live performances would capture the
essential spontaneity of her artistry, Colpix opted to record her September 12, 1959 show. “You Can
Have Him,” a torch song previously cut by Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, was one of the highlights of
the evening. The song opened with a dazzling keyboard arpeggio that would become her signature for
decades.
As Nina’s reputation as a dynamic live performer grew, it wasn’t long before she was asked to perform
at the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival. She was accompanied on the June, 1960 show by a trio that
included Al Schackman, a guitarist who would go on to become Nina’s longest-running musical
colleague. Soon after, she met another man who would be central to her life – New York police
detective Andy Stroud, who she married in December of 1961 and who would later become her
manager as well as the father of her only child, Lisa.
Nina’s many Colpix recordings from 1959 to 1964 cemented her appeal to a nightclub-based U.S.
audience. They included her version of the blues classic “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And
Out,” the soulful “Cotton Eyed Joe,” the torch song “The Other Women,” and the Norwegian folk
rendition of “Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair” – all eclectic examples of Nina Simone at her
storytelling best. Her music defied standard definitions, but Nina’s classical training showed through, no
matter what genre of song she played. She was often called the "High Priestess of Soul,” but was said
to dislike that nickname. She didn't like the label of "jazz singer" either. "If I had to be called something,
it should have been a folk singer because there was more folk and blues than jazz in my playing," she
later wrote.
Once Nina left Colpix and moved to the Dutch-owned Phillips label, she was ready to expand her
following globally and raise her voice politically. On her 1964 debut album for Philips, “Nina Simone in
Concert” (from her first performances at Carnegie Hall), Nina openly addressed the country’s racial
inequality with the song "Mississippi Goddam," her impassioned response to the 1963 assassination
of Medgar Evers and the Alabama church bombing that killed four young African-American girls. "Old
Jim Crow," on the same album, addressed the Jim Crow laws. "Mississippi Goddam" was banned
throughout the South, but this response made no difference to Nina’s unyielding commitment to the civil
rights movement. She performed the song at one of the Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama in
1965, and subsequent groundbreaking recordings of “Four Women” and “Strange Fruit” continued to
keep her in the forefront as one of the few performers willing to use music as a vehicle for social
commentary and change. Such risks were seldom taken by artists during that time of such dramatic
civil upheaval. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Nina performed "Why (The
King of Love Is Dead)." She also wrote "Young, Gifted and Black," borrowing the title of a play by
Lorraine Hansberry, which became a popular black anthem at the time and reached #10 on the
Billboard R&B chart.
As Nina was cementing her status in the ‘60s as a leading civil rights activist (Stokely Carmichael
proclaimed her the voice of the movement), she was also producing some of her best-known songs
and at the same time expressing a growing disenchantment with the music industry. Among her most
significant recordings of that period were signature songs such as “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “I
Put A Spell On You” (#23 on the Billboard R&B chart), “Ne me quitte pas” and “Sinnerman.” After she
signed with RCA Records in 1967, one of her very first recordings for the label was the sensual “I Want
A Little Sugar In My Bowl.” By this time, Nina had become closely involved with a circle of AfricanAmerican playwrights, poets and writers all centered in Harlem that included Lorraine Hansberry,
Langston Hughes (with whom she wrote “The Backlash Blues”) and James Baldwin.
Nina’s seven years with RCA produced some remarkable recordings, ranging from two songs featured
in the Broadway musical “Hair” (combined into a medley, “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life”) to a Simone-ified
version of George Harrison’s “Here Comes The Sun,” which remained in Nina’s repertoire all the way
through to her final performance in 2002. Along the way at RCA, songs penned by Bob Dylan (“Just
Like A Woman”), the brothers Gibb (“To Love Somebody”), and Tina Turner (“Funkier Than A
Mosquito’s Tweeter”) took pride of place alongside the older works in her songbook.
As the 1960s drew to a close, Nina tired of the American music scene and the country's deeply divided
racial politics. Her marriage to Andy Stroud also came to an end; they divorced in 1971. In the 1970s
and early ‘80s she lived in several different countries, including Barbados, Liberia, Switzerland,
England and the Netherlands, eventually settling in France. During this period she struggled with her
finances and clashed with managers, record labels and the Internal Revenue Service. Though always
known as a mercurial, unpredictable performer, her behavior onstage and off became increasingly
volatile, and in the late ‘80s she was diagnosed as bipolar.
In 1974, she recorded her last album for RCA, “It Is Finished.” Nina did not make another record until
1978, when the head of CTI Records persuaded her to make the album “Baltimore,” which, while not a
commercial success, marked a quiet artistic renaissance in her recording output. Four years later she
recorded “Fodder on My Wings” for a French record label. During the 1980s, Nina performed regularly
at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, where in 1984 she recorded the album “Live at Ronnie Scott's.”
In 1987, the original 1958 recording of "My Baby Just Cares for Me" was used in a commercial
for Chanel No. 5 perfume in the United Kingdom, giving her a brief surge in popularity in Europe. She
recorded her last album, “A Single Woman,” in 1993 and continued to tour through the ‘90s,
maintaining a strong fan base that filled concert halls whenever she performed.
In her 1992 autobiography, “I Put a Spell on You,” Nina Simone wrote that her function as an artist was
“…to make people feel on a deep level. It’s difficult to describe because it’s not something you can
analyze; to get near what it’s about you have to play it. And when you’ve caught it, when you’ve got the
audience hooked, you always know because it’s like electricity hanging in the air.” It was that very
electricity that made her such an important artist to so many. Her music still resonates with great power
and emotion.
Nina Simone died of breast cancer at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France on April 21, 2003. Her
funeral service was attended by Miriam Makeba, Patti Labelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis,
and hundreds of others. Two days before her death, The Curtis Institute of Philadelphia – the music
school that had rejected her – awarded Nina an honorary diploma.
FILMMAKER BIOGRAPHIES
LIZ GARBUS, Director / Producer
Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning producer/director Liz Garbus is one of
America’s most prominent documentary filmmakers.
Garbus’ film Love, Marilyn screened as a Gala Premiere at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival. Featuring
the voices of Uma Thurman, Adrien Brody, Viola Davis, Ben Foster, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood,
F. Murray Abraham, Ellen Burstyn and other actors, the film was acquired by HBO and aired in 2013. In
2011, her Bobby Fischer Against the World opened the Premiere Documentary section of the
Sundance Film Festival. The film earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Best Non-Fiction Special
and won the prestigious UK Grierson Award for Best Cinema Documentary. Her first documentary, The
Farm: Angola, USA, made in collaboration with Jonathan Stack, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998
Sundance Film Festival, was awarded ten other festival and critics’ awards, and was nominated for an
Oscar in 1999.
Following The Farm’s success, Garbus co-founded Moxie Firecracker Films with producer/director Rory
Kennedy. With Garbus directing and Kennedy producing, the two made the 2001 feature-length
documentary Girlhood. In 2002, Garbus’ documentary The Execution of Wanda Jean premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival and aired later that year on HBO. In 2005, she and Kennedy executiveproduced Street Fight (PBS), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. In
2006, Moxie Firecracker collaborated with Rosie Perez to produce Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’Que Tu Lo
Sepas (IFC). Garbus and Kennedy’s credits also include Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, which premiered at
Sundance and won the Emmy for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special of 2007; Coma, which aired on HBO
in 2007; and as producers of the Academy Award-nominated 2010 short, Killing in the Name. Garbus’
other directorial credits include The Nazi Officer’s Wife, narrated by Susan Sarandon and Julia Ormond
(A&E); Xiara’s Song (HBO); Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech (Sundance, HBO);
and There’s Something Wrong With Aunt Diane (HBO). Her most recent documentary, A Good Job:
Stories of the FDNY, which she produced with actor Steve Buscemi, aired on HBO in September of
2014.
AMY HOBBY, Producer
Amy Hobby has twenty years of experience as an award-winning feature and documentary film
producer. Hobby’s reputation for awards-driven filmmaking began with a series of narrative films that
includes Nadja (Sundance, October Films), produced alongside David
Lynch; Sunday (Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Un Certain Regard at Cannes); Hamlet (Sundance,
Miramax), starring Ethan Hawke, Bill Murray and Sam Shepard; Secretary (Sundance Jury Prize,
Lionsgate), starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, who was nominated for an Golden Globe Award for her role;
and 13 Conversations About One Thing (Toronto, Sony Pictures Classics), starring Matthew
McConaughey. More recently, she was one of the producers of Lucky Them (Toronto, IFC Films),
starring Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church and Johnny Depp.
Hobby’s documentary producing credits include And Everything Is Going Fine, directed by Steven
Soderbergh; Shepard & Dark (Music Box Films); and Love, Marilyn (Telluride, Toronto, HBO) with
director Liz Garbus.
In 2013, Hobby co-founded Tangerine Entertainment, a company that produces and builds audiences
for films directed by women. Tangerine is currently producing Paint It Black, directed by Amber
Tamblyn and starring Janet McTeer.
JUSTIN WILKES, Producer
As the president of RadicalMedia's entertainment group and as an accomplished producer
himself, Justin Wilkes has extensive experience in television production, live entertainment, digital
platforms, feature films, documentaries and episodic TV. Under his leadership and fourteen-year history
with the company, RadicalMedia has pushed the art of storytelling across multiple forms of media, and
is constantly exploring and expanding the traditional boundaries, in collaboration with creative talent,
networks, studios, brands and agencies.
Recent executive producer and producer credits include the Academy Award and Emmy-nominated
documentary, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory for HBO; the Emmy-winning Paul Simon/Graceland
documentary, Under African Skies for A&E Films; the Jay Z/Ron Howard documentary, Made In
America for Showtime; ESPN’s “30 for 30” Bo Jackson documentary, You Don’t Know Bo; five seasons
of the Emmy-nominated OWN series, Oprah’s Master Class; six seasons of Iconoclasts for Sundance
Channel; David Blaine’s Real or Magic for ABC; Joe Berlinger’s Whitey: United States of America v.
James J. Bulger for CNN Films; Sting: The Last Ship for PBS Great Performances; and the Emmynominated AOL series, Park Bench with Steve Buscemi.
Wilkes has been the recipient of numerous industry accolades, including multiple Cannes Lions, Clios,
an NAACP award, an IDA nomination and three primetime Emmy Award nominations.
JAYSON JACKSON, Producer
Jayson Jackson began his career in the entertainment industry at Def Jam Records, where he was
responsible for creating Grammy campaigns, including a Grammy win for the song “You’re All I Need to
Get By,” by Method Man and Mary J. Blige. He continued to apply his promotional expertise as head of
marketing at Sean Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment. Jackson went on to manage Lauryn Hill through the
launch of her solo debut “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” which was nominated for 10 Grammys and
won 5 (including Album of the Year). He also managed slam poet champion Sarah Jones, and
produced her award-winning Off-Broadway play, bridge and tunnel (on which Meryl Streep served as
executive producer). bridge and tunnel eventually moved to Broadway, where it received a special
Tony Award. Jackson also produced (alongside Spike Lee) Lemon Andersen’s County of Kings at The
Public Theater.
Jackson began consulting with the Estate of Nina Simone in 2012, and his dream of honoring her life
and music came to fruition when he began work on What Happened, Miss Simone?.
LISA SIMONE KELLY, Executive Producer
Lisa Simone Kelly, better known as Simone and Lisa Simone in entertainment circles, is a United
States Air Force veteran, singer, composer, Grammy award nominee, award-winning actress, and the
only child of Nina Simone. Her career in the entertainment industry began over 20 years ago in
Frankfurt Germany, while serving in the military. Kelly originated the Disney roles of both Aida (Aida)
and Nala (The Lion King) and won the National Broadway Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Musical
in the lead role of Aida while heading up its first national tour. She continued in the role at New York’s
Palace Theatre to much critical acclaim (Variety/ Billboard). A member of the original Broadway cast of
Rent in the role of Mimi Marquez, Kelly garnered nominations for the Helen Hayes and Jefferson
Awards. She was nominated for a Grammy Award as a member of Liquid Soul for their album “Here’s
The Deal,” and has continued to blaze a trail from New York’s Carnegie and Town Halls and Australia’s
Sydney Opera House alongside Dianne Reeves, Angelique Kidjo, Odetta and Tracy Chapman, to
headlining worldwide jazz festivals in Telluride, Montreux, the North Sea and Paris. Kelly was a
featured performer on the soundtrack of Tyler Perry’s movie For Colored Girls and topped the jazz
charts with her big band tribute album to her mother, “Simone On Simone.”
Lisa Simone Kelly is on tour supporting her album “All Is Well,” currently number 4 on FNAC’s jazz
charts, to sold-out venues across Europe. She will be recording a sophomore Nina Simone tribute
album with the Tromso Big Band, live at The Edge in Tromso, Norway in January 2015.
JOSHUA L. PEARSON, Editor
Joshua L. Pearson’s filmmaking career began with Emergency Broadcast Network (EBN), a multimedia
music video performance group formed in 1991. Signed to TVT Records, EBN created multi-channel
video projection performances in diverse venues ranging from The Limelight to Lincoln Center’s Alice
Tully Hall. EBN also created multi-channel projections for U2's ZooTV and Zooropa tours and
collaborated with U2 on an audio/video remix of "Numb" in 1993. EBN’s first and only full-length
release, “Telecommunication Breakdown” in 1995, included collaborations with producers Brian Eno
and Bill Laswell.
Pearson has since edited a broad range of commercials and long-form episodic television for
RadicalMedia and, in recent years, edited a succession of documentary films. These include: two films
for director Joe Berlinger, Under African Skies and Whitey: The United States vs. James J. Bulger, both
of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (in 2012 and 2014 respectively); and Made In
America, directed by Ron Howard, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2013. Pearson
continues to compose music and scores some of the productions he edits.
IGOR MARTINOVIC, Director of Photography
Igor Martinovic is a New York-based cinematographer of feature and documentary films. Martinovic
shot the Academy Award-winning documentary Man on Wire, about the famous tightrope walker
Philippe Petit, which also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film as well as the 2008 Sundance
Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. In 2014, Martinovic was nominated for an Emmy Award for his
cinematography work on the second season of the Netflix series House of Cards. His other work of
note includes Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Sangre De Mi Sangre; Red Riding: 1980; Silent
House, starring Elizabeth Olsen; Sunlight Jr., starring Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon; and BBC’s
Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh.
RACHEL MORRISON, Director of Photography
Director of photography Rachel Morrison has two films premiering at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival:
Director Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope and Liz Garbus’ What Happened, Miss Simone?. Her previous films
that have premiered at Sundance include Fruitvale Station, Sound of My Voice and Little Accidents.
Cake, which Morrison lensed for director Daniel Barnz, premiered at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival.
The film stars Jennifer Aniston, Anna Kendrick and Sam Worthington and will open nationwide in
January of 2015.
Morrison’s feature credits also include Any Day Now, which premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film
Festival, where it won the Audience Award; The Harvest, a thriller starring Samantha Morton and
Michael Shannon; and Neil Labute’s Some Girl(s), directed by Daisy von Mayer and starring Adam
Brody, Emily Watson, Zoe Kazan, Kristin Bell, Mia Maestro and Jennifer Morrison.
ABOUT NETFLIX Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 53 million members in nearly 50
countries enjoying more than two billion hours of TV shows and movies per month, including original
series, documentaries and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime,
anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching,
all without commercials or commitments.
What Happened, Miss Simone? is the network’s first commissioned Original Documentary. Other
Netflix Original Documentaries include 2014's multi-Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated The Square
and the recently Oscar-nominated Virunga.
ABOUT RADICAL MEDIA
RadicalMedia, a global studio, has produced a number of films telling nuanced, multi-faceted stories
including: the Academy Award and Independent Spirit Award-winning documentary The Fog of War;
the Grammy-winning Concert for George; Under African Skies, the Emmy Award-winning documentary
examining the making of the groundbreaking and controversial Paul Simon record “Graceland”; the Ron
Howard-helmed Jay Z documentary Made in America; and Whitey: The United States vs. James J.
Bulger, Joe Berlinger’s latest film that chronicles the trial of crime boss, Whitey Bulger.
A Netflix Documentary
A Radical Media Production
In Association with Moxie Firecracker
WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?
Director
LIZ GARBUS
Producers
AMY HOBBY
LIZ GARBUS
JUSTIN WILKES
JAYSON JACKSON
Executive Producers
(RadicalMedia)
SIDNEY BEAUMONT
JON KAMEN
Executive Producers
(Netflix)
LISA NISHIMURA
ADAM DEL DEO
Executive Producer
LISA SIMONE KELLY
Editor
JOSHUA L. PEARSON
Cinematography
IGOR MARTINOVIC
RACHEL MORRISON
Consulting Producer
Associate Producer
Line Producer
PETER RODIS
ADRIENNE COLLATOS
JOSEPH MALLOCH
Consultants
STEPHEN CLEARY
JOE HAGAN
ALLYSON LUCHAK
MARY RECINE
SUSAN HORMUTH
Archival Producer
Researcher
POST PRODUCTION SERVICES – OUTPOST DIGITAL
Managing Director
Post Production Producer
Post Production Supervisor
Post Production Coordinator
LIZ FRIESELL MASON
JENNIFER HELM
KIMBERLY RUDOLPH
ALAINA DELY
Main Title Sequence
Assistant Editor
CHRIS RUBINO
TIM MOYLE
Colorist
Online/VFX Artist
Graphics Artists
YOHANCE BROWN
ROSS VINCENT
MANYA KUZEMCHENKO
JONATHAN LEONG
CRAIG LACOMBE
AUDIO POST PRODUCTION – TVO POST & SOUND LOUNGE
Supervising Sound Editor/
Re-recording
Mixer Sound Designer
Sound Facility Coordinator
TONY VOLANTE
Music Clearance
Music Rights Executive
EVAN M. GREENSPAN, INC.
KEVIN MAGOWAN
Classical Recordings
Additional Music
JADE SIMMONS
JOE MCGINTY
JOSHUA L. PEARSON
DAN TIMMONS
ROB BROWNING
INTERVIEWEES:
LISA SIMONE KELLY - Nina’s Daughter
ROGER NUPIE - Friend
AL SCHACKMAN - Nina’s Guitarist / Musical Director
GEORGE WEIN - Founder, Newport Jazz Festival
STANLEY CROUCH - Cultural Critic
DICK GREGORY - Entertainer / Activist
ILYASAH SHABAZZ - Daughter of Betty Shabazz & Malcolm X
AMBASSADOR SHABAZZ - Eldest Shabazz Daughter
GERRIT DE BRUIN - Friend
THE APPEARANCE OF NINA SIMONE IS BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE ESTATE OF
NINA SIMONE, COURTESY OF STEVEN AMES BROWN
AUDIO RECORDINGS COURTESY OF:
AUDIO FROM NINA SIMONE INTERVIEW WITH DICK HUBERT ON NOVEMBER 12, 1967
FROM CELEBRITY’S CHOICE, COURTESY OF DICK HUBERT PRODUCTIONS
© 2014 VIDEOWARE CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY PERMISSION.
AUDIO FOR “NINA SIMONE - LIVE AT RONNIE SCOTT’S” COURTESY OF ROB LEMKIN
ERIC KULBERG
FRANK LORDS
GENERAL COMMISSION ON ARCHIVES AND HISTORY OF THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH,
HARPERAUDIO
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHER
INDIANA UNIVERSITY, ARCHIVES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSIC AND CULTURE
JULIE RISHER
MARY MARTIN NIEPOLD
UNIVERSAL MEDIA, INC.
ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE COURTESY OF:
HARLEM CULTURAL FESTIVAL AND HAL TULCHIN
ABCNEWS VIDEOSOURCE
COURTESY OF STEVEN AMES BROWN
ARCHIVE FILMS/GETTY IMAGES
RECORDED AT THE MONTREUX JAZZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS
FESTIVAL
AV GEEKS
BBC BROADCAST ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
MUSIQUES AU COEUR.LES VOIX NOIRES
BETSY SCHECHTER & JERRY KUPFER
ARIANE ADRIANI, INSTITUT NATIONAL DE
BO DENNIS NIELSEN
L’AUDIOVISUEL
CREATIVE ARTS TELEVISION
MYFOOTAGE.COM
NINA SIMONE Á L’OLYMPIA. BERNARD LION,
ADDITIONAL CONCERT FOOTAGE
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE L’AUDIOVISUEL
BY THE ESTATE OF NINA SIMONE
@ NDR DISTRIBUTED BY STUDIO HAMBURG
AND RICH AND FAMOUS RECORDS LTD.,
DISTRIBUTION & MARKETING GMBH
COURTESY OF STEVEN AMES BROWN
NBCUNIVERSAL ARCHIVES
NHNZ MOVING
eFOOTAGE, LLC. USED BY PERMISSION.
IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
FILM ARCHIVES, INC.
PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES
FOOTAGE FARM
POND 5/NAO THARP
H. LEE WATERS
POND 5/FIKFILM
HEBDO CHANSON HEBDO MUSIQUE
POND 5/EARTH UNCUT PRODUCTIONS LTD.
GEORGES BARRIER,
POND 5/MR SPILBERG
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE L’AUDIOVISUEL
POND 5/ZR MEDIA
HISTORIC FILMS ARCHIVE
POND 5/ALISTER CHAPMAN
HUNTLEY FILM ARCHIVES LTD.
QUATRE TEMPS. MICHELE ARNAUD,
ITN SOURCE
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE L’AUDIOVISUEL
JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY, LLC.
REELIN’ IN THE YEARS PRODUCTIONS, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
RETRO VIDEO, INC.
RICK RAY/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
MONTREUX FOOTAGE LICENSED FROM
STEFAN SHARFF
RICH & FAMOUS RECORDS, LTD. AND THE
STORMSTOCK
ESTATE OF NINA SIMONE,
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF:
© ALFRED WERTHEIMER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART/GETTY
ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES
IMAGES
ASSOCIATED PRESS BERNARD GOTFRYD
CORBIS IMAGES
DAVID ATTIE
FRANCES WAYMON
FOX GEORGE DYCK
GERRIT DE BRUIN
GILES DAMAN
© GUY LE QUERREC/MAGNUM PHOTOS
JEANNE MILLER
JOHN LAUNOIS
JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY, LLC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
KEN REGAN/CAMERA 5
KEN STEINHOFF MATTHIAS LAMPE
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
MOORLAND-SPINGARN
RESEARCH CENTER, HOWARD UNIVERSITY
NINA 1959 PHOTOS BY HERB SNITZER
PARIS MATCH ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
PHOTO BY GIN BRIGGS
USE COURTESY OF LORRAINE
HANSBERRY
LITERARY TRUST AND JOI GRESHAM
PHOTOFEST INC.
PROMETHEUS GLOBAL MEDIA © 2014
RON DICKEY
ROY LEWIS
THE CURTIS INSTITUTE OF MUSIC
THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY
IMAGES
VERSE MUSIC GROUP
OTHER MATERIALS:
MALCOLM X PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION,
STATE GOVERNORS’ NEGATIVE
SCHOMBURG CENTER
COLLECTION, 1949-1975,
FOR RESEARCH IN BLACK CULTURE
WASHINGTON STATE ARCHIVE
THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL
THE TRYON DAILY BULLETIN
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
MUSIC
(in order of appearance)
GOOD KING WENCESLAS
Traditional
I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE
Written by Billy Taylor & Dick Dallas
Published by Duane Music, Inc. (ASCAP)
Administered by 1630 Music Publishing Services, Inc.
Unicorn Music Company/ASCAP
CHILDREN GO WHERE I SEND YOU
Written by Nina Simone
Published by Unicorn Music Company/ASCAP
Courtesy of Rhino Entertainment Company
By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV
Licensing
NOBODY’S FAULT BUT MINE
Written by Nina Simone
Published by EMI Waterford Music, Inc./ASCAP
Performed by Nina Simone Courtesy of RCA Records
Courtesy of Steven Ames Brown
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
BROWN BABY
Written by Oscar Brown Jr.
Published by Edward B. Marks Music Co./BMI
Bootblack Publishing Company/BMI
LITTLE LIZA JANE
Written by Nina Simone
Published by WB Music Corp./ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
FOR ALL WE KNOW
Published by EMI Feist Catalog, Inc./ASCAP,
Toy Town Tunes, Inc./ASCAP
Courtesy Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Bienstock Publishing Company (ASCAP)
On Behalf Of Redwood Music LTD. (PRS)
I LOVES YOU PORGY FROM “PORGY AND BESS”
Written by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin,
DuBose Heyward and Dorothy Heyward
Published by Dubose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial
Fund/ASCAP, George Gershwin Music/ASCAP,
Ira Gershwin Music/ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Imagem Music LLC/ASCAP, Songs Music Publishing LLC
MY BABY JUST CARES FOR ME
Written by Gus Kahn, Walter Donaldson
Published by WB Music Corp. o/b/o itself
Gilbert Keyes Music Co./ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Donaldson Publishing Co./ASCAP
Performed by Nina Simone
Originally recorded for Bethlehem Records © 1958
License courtesy of Verse Music Group
IF YOU KNEW
Written by Nina Simone
Published by WB Music Corp./ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Courtesy of Rhino Entertainment Company
By Arrangement with Warner Music Group
Film & TV Licensing
LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME
Written by Gus Kahn, Walter Donaldson
Published by WB Music Corp/ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
I PUT A SPELL ON YOU
Written by Jay Hawkins
Published by EMI Unart Catalog, Inc./BMI
Performed by Nina Simone
Courtesy of The Verve Music Group
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
WORK SONG
Composed by Nathaniel Adderley, Oscar Brown Jr.
Published by UPAM Music Co.,
A division of Gopam Enterpries, Inc.
MISSISSIPPI GODDAM
Written by Nina Simone
Published by WB Music Corp./ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Performed by Nina Simone
Courtesy of The Verve Music Group
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN
Traditional
STRANGE FRUIT
Written by Lewis Allan
Published by E.B. Marks Music Corp./BMI,
Music Sales Corporation/ASCAP
Performed by Nina Simone
Courtesy of The Verve Music Group
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK
Written by Nina Simone, Weldon J. Irvine, Jr.
Published by EMI Grove Park Music, Inc./BMI
Performed by Nina Simone Courtesy of RCA Records
Courtesy of Steven Ames Brown
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
DON’T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD
Written by Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus, GloriaCaldwell
Published by Chris-N-Jen Music/ASCAP,and WB Music
Corp./ASCAP, Bennie Benjamin Music, Inc./ASCAP,
Chappell & Co. Inc./ASCAP,
Rose Marcus/ASCAP, Claude A Music Co./ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
THE BACKLASH BLUES
Written by Nina Simone, Langston Hughes
Published by EMI Waterford Music, Inc./ASCAP
I GOT LIFE
Written by Gerome Ragni, James Rado,
Galt MacDermot
Published by EMI U Catalog, Inc./ASCAP
ARE YOU READY?
Performed by Nina Simone
WHY? (THE KING OF LOVE IS DEAD)
Written by Calvin Taylor
Published by EMI Grove Park Music, Inc./BMI
Performed by Nina Simone Courtesy of RCA Records
Courtesy of Steven Ames Brown
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
DON’T SMOKE IN BED
Written by Willard Robison
Published by Universal Music Corp./ASCAP
Performed by Nina Simone
Originally recorded for Bethlehem Records © 1958
License courtesy of Verse Music Group
WESTWIND
Written by Caiphus Semenya, William Salter
Published by BMG Ruby Songs/ASCAP
and Antisia Music/ASCAP
Performed by Nina Simone Courtesy of RCA Records
Courtesy of Steven Ames Brown
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
STARS
Written by Janis Ian
Published by Toasongs Two/BMI
VOUS ETES SEULS,
MAIS JE DESIRE ETRE AVEC VOUS
Written and performed by Nina Simone
YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE
Written by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II
Published by Williamson Music Company/ASCAP
Performed by Nina Simone
Originally recorded for Bethlehem Records © 1958
License courtesy of Verse Music Group
SINNERMAN
Written by Nina Simone
Published by WB Music Corp/ASCAP
Courtesy of Warner / Chappell Music, Inc.
Performed by Nina Simone
Courtesy of The Verve Music Group Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
Copyright © 2014 @radical.media LLC and The Estate of Nina Simone. All Rights Reserved.
Technical Information:
Duration - 102 min.
Screening format - DCP
Shooting format - 16mm, Alexa
Audio - 5.1 Surround
Distribution & Production Partners:
Publicity
North America, Latin America, UK/IE, Netherlands, Nordics, France, Germany:
Karen Barragan, Netflix Originals (kbarragan@netflix.com)
North American Affiliates:
East Coast - Susan Norget Film Promotion - Susan Norget (susan@norget.com)
West Coast - Ginsberg Libby - Chris Libby (chris.libby@ginsberglibby.com)