A new Donna Summer documentary, Love to Love You, is set to premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival this month before arriving on HBO in May.
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The film was co-directed by Summer’s daughter, Brooklyn Sudano, and Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams. The film will document Summer’s rise to fame, including her beginnings as an avant-garde artist in Germany. Along with chronicling her path to becoming a global superstar, the film will dig into her personal life and other artistic pursuits. Summer died in 2012 at the age of 63, following a battle with cancer.
Love to Love You will make use of archival footage, including never-before-seen home videos. Interviews with Summer’s family, friends, and peers will also be included.
The film is Sudano’s directorial debut. She has worked as an actress in the past with notable roles on shows like Cruel Summer, Taken, and Ballers. Love to Love You will be one of two films Williams has on the docket for 2023. The other, titled Cassandro, is a biopic of a gay Mexican wrestler Saúl Armendáriz, who became a superstar under the persona Cassandro. The biopic is his narrative feature debut.
Summer teamed up with producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte for her first international hit, “Love to Love You Baby” in 1975. After a few missteps, she returned to the top of the charts with “I Feel Love” in 1977. She kept the hit streak going in the subsequent years with the dance floor anthem “Last Dance,” and other singles “MacArthur Park” and “Heaven Knows.”
Beyoncé paid homage to Summer’s influence on disco on her latest record, Renaissance. The pseudo title track, “Summer Renaissance,” interpolates Summer’s “I Feel Love” and borrows some of the lyrics for the chorus. For Beyoncé, Summer represents the thesis of the record: rebirth, celebration, and innovation (per Genius).
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