Double Agent, Network Entertainment, Experience Hendrix partnering on Jimi Hendrix doc

Double Agent, Network Entertainment, and Experience Hendrix are in production on Jimi, a documentary about the legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix, authorised for the first time by the Jimi Hendrix Estate.

Bao Nguyen, whose most recent film The Greatest Night In Pop is nominated for three Emmys, is directing the project.

Network Entertainment, financier-producer Double Agent, the non-fiction joint venture between Black Bear and New Regency that is behind Asif Kapadia’s Venice premiere 2073, and Experience Hendrix are the production companies.

On board as producers are Network Entertainment’s Derik Murray, Dana O’Keefe for Double Agent, and Janie Hendrix.

Jimi charts the musician’s rise as 23-year-old unsung sideman Jimmy James arrives on the scene in London’s Swinging Sixties, transforms into Jimi Hendrix, and delivers his breakout performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in the United States. The rest is history.

The feature will use newly commissioned interviews, previously unseen photographs, restored archival footage, and Hendrix tracks.

Hendrix’s sister Janie Hendrix said, “Jimi’s time in London was some of the most pivotal in his life journey and his musical career… Just as Bao Nguyen has achieved in his films highlighting the lives of other iconic figures who influenced pop culture, this presentation of Jimi’s London experience will be inspiring and informative – a story told the way it should be.”

Nguyen added, “Through this film, I hope to capture the vibrant atmosphere of the 1960s music scene, and [Hendrix’s] meteoric rise to superstardom, culminating in the legendary show at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival – a triumphant homecoming where his incendiary performance didn’t just set his guitar alight – it ignited a cultural shift that changed the course of music history.”

Jimi executive producers are Yariv Milchan, Natalie Lehmann, Teddy Schwarzman, Michael Heimler, Brian Gersh for Network Entertainment, Colin Smeeton and Matthew Gross for Authentic Studios, and Ryan Beedie for Beedie Investments.