Luther Vandross

Although the singer was never diagnosed with AIDS or HIV, his image appeared in a montage during "Live to Tell" alongside Freddie Mercury, Herb Ritts, and Keith Haring Madonna‘s Celebration tour takes a moment each night to pay tribute to artists who suffered or died from AIDS. During “Live to Tell,” her 1986 single about persevering through trying times, a montage of images flash across the screen. Among them are photos of Keith Haring, Herb Ritts, and Freddie Mercury, who all battled the disease.…

When award-winning filmmaker Dawn Porter — who directed the upcoming Luther Vandross documentary Luther: Never Too Much — thinks of her favorite song by the legendary singer, she selects “So Amazing,” the timeless track he wrote and produced for Dionne Warwick and later recorded himself. But then she pauses. “I think it’s hard for me because I’m very attached to some scenes right now,” she says. Then she speaks about “Any Love,” Vandross’ autobiographical song about wanting to find the one and the…

Dawn Porter looks for stories of people who made history without asking. By following congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis in John Lewis: Good Trouble, or President Obama’s White House photographer Pete Souza in The Way I See It, she says she hopes to shade in between the lines of history.  In her most recent project, Hulu’s The Lady Bird Diaries, she fixates on Lady Bird Johnson’s life, relying largely on archival audio recordings that were released following the former first lady’s death in 2007. In her…

Sundance Film Festival 2024 has its bases covered. The 40th edition of the film festival will feature the premiere of Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun‘s post-apocalyptic romance Love Me; Michael John Warren’s evolutionary documentary Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza; Steven Soderbergh‘s haunted house thriller Presence; and 88 additional films, documentaries, and episodic titles. Among the documentaries premiering at the festival are Luther: Never Too Much, following the life and legacy of Luther Vandross; DEVO,…