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Long-Awaited M.I.A. Documentary to Premiere at Sundance 2018

NEW YORK, NY - MAY 10: M.I.A. performs onstage at the Vulture Festival Presents MIA + Solange at Webster Hall on May 10, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for New York Magazine)

The Sundance Film Festival announced its 2018 feature films today, including several music-related releases such as a Joan Jett documentary Bad Reputation, a biopic about country-music outlaw Blaze Foley directed by Ethan Hawke, and Believer, a documentary following Imagine Dragons’ Mormon frontman Dan Reynolds as he explores the church’s treatment of its LGBTQ members.

In addition, the lineup includes a documentary about M.I.A. called MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A., which features a “cache of personal footage spanning decades.” The documentary, directed by Stephen Loveridge, has a fraught past. Loveridge released a trailer for the project in 2013, which featured Kanye West, Julian Assange, and Diplo, but the documentary stalled later that year due to disputes between the director and M.I.A.’s label, Interscope. Things got so bad that Loveridge said he “couldn’t give a flying fuck” and that he’d “rather die than work on this.” As recently as March of this year, M.I.A. told FACT, “I don’t know what’s happening with my doc,” and that she hadn’t spoken to Loveridge in years. But Sundance’s film annoncement seems to indicate that the original documentary will finally see the light of day at the festival next year.