Aretha Franklin - Soul Sister

A vibrant portrait of the Queen of Soul - inseparable from Detroit, her stronghold, and the struggle for civil rights - who has become a symbol of freedom and power for African-American women.

A powerful voice "to blow up an entire house" and an authentic artist, Aretha Franklin grew up in Detroit in a house filled with music. A charismatic and committed preacher, her father, the famous pastor C. L. Franklin, frequented jazz, gospel and civil rights figures such as Martin Luther King. Aretha forged her talent through their contact, also drawing inspiration from her father's sense of dramaturgy, whose sermons were a hit, and from the school, also theatrical, of gospel music. A very precocious mother (at the age of 14), she recorded her first album the same year. At the age of 18, she signed with the Columbia Records label, which intended to have her sing sanitized jazz standards, a format that hardly suits this volcanic artist, who is infatuated with feeling and spirituality. In 1967, she met Jerry Wexler, legendary producer of Atlantic Records, who let her accompany herself on the piano, find her own style and reinvent soul. Her career then exploded, especially when she covered Otis Redding's "Respect", the macho, slightly macho track, and made it a feminist banner.

Self-affirmation
Filmed for the most part in Detroit, to which she will always remain attached, this documentary retraces the biography of the queen of soul through archives, numerous insights and testimonies. A story that merges with the tumultuous history of her city and the fight for civil rights that she has always supported. A symbol of success for the black community, Aretha Franklin also showed African-American women the path to self-assertion by following her instincts.

Documentary by France Swimberge (France, 2020, 52mn) - Co-production: ARTE France, Program33