KURT COBAIN  ABOUT A SON

The film is not a documentary about Nirvana, the band Kurt fronted, nor is it even a documentary in the traditional sense, but a profound, almost dream-like account of Cobain's own successes and failures, thoughts and experiences, allowing the audience unprecedented intimacy with a legendary figure in popular culture.

For this unique film, director AJ Schnack assembled selections from the Azerrad interviews and merged them with newly filmed, evocative imagery of the three cities in Washington state that played a major role in Cobain's life: Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle. These expressionistic images, combined with a haunting original score by Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and Nirvana producer Steve Fisk, as well as the music of 20 artists who influenced or touched Cobain during his life - including Queen, the Melvins, David Bowie and Scratch Acid -- come together to create an extraordinary look at a man who went from impoverished indie rocker to world-famous tabloid figure in less than a year.

It was during that last, controversial stage of his life that most remember Kurt Cobain. Schnack seeks to reconnect the public to a more complete, well-rounded portrait of the man, and in the process demystify Kurt Cobain, allowing the audience to experience Kurt not as legendary and unattainable, but rather as tangible and real.

Through Kurt Cobain's recounting, we also see a portrait of a specific moment in American history, of a generation of individuals who grew up in the midst of the wrenching societal and cultural upheavals of the 1970s and 1980s. In part because his own story was so similar to much of his audience's, and because of the exquisite purity of his own anger, Kurt Cobain came to be known as a spokesman for his generation. While Cobain never embraced this label, the film makes clear that he was a thoughtful and introspective figure, and that these societal and cultural changes had a huge and profound influence on his life and art.

Working closely with Michael Azerrad, AJ Schnack and his producers gathered a talented team of artists to work on the project, including legendary photographer Charles Peterson, whose photographs of the Seattle music scene are considered the definitive photographic record of the time.