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= Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (film) =

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami is a documentary film, directed by Sophie Fiennes that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 7, 2017, about actress, model and singer Grace Jones. The film chronicles Jones’ career and life on-stage and off through the early 2000s gathering and editing material over 12 years. Fiennes regales Jones’ dazzling and androgynous performances and fashion around the world along with a more vulnerable exposure to Jones’ off-stage presence, life and self-management, including meeting her newborn granddaughter and a family reunion in Jamaica where Jones and her family discuss religion and the difficulties of growing up with an abusive step grandfather. The film’s title derives from the Patois meaning of “Bloodlight” as the red light in a recording studio and “Bami” as a local Jamaican flatbread. The film weaves in and out of Jones’ public and private life with live performances of songs including, “Slave to the Rhythm,” “My Jamaican Guy,” "La Vie en Rose," "Pull Up to the Bumper" and "Warm Leatherette" with Jones donning fantastic headgear and a disco-ball bowler hat, juxtaposed with scenes of Jones speaking with ex-partner and visual artist Jean-Paul Goude and collaborating with Jamaican musicians Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare for her 2008 album, Hurricane, and more raw footage of Jones with her family.

Production and Conception
In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Jones recalls hitting it off with Fiennes during their first meeting at a screening for Fiennes documentary with Jones’ brother, Bishop Noel Jones. "“I just said, ‘we should do something.’ I also saw her other films and I knew she definitely has a vision and a passion for what she’s doing. So, I felt completely safe in a way that I could be unsafe, you know? I could also let everything hang out. Literally!” - Grace Jones"Fiennes avoids conventional documentary styles of talking-head interviews and archival footage, without background or context of location and time frame the film is an emphasis on cine-vérité. Fiennes observed and captured sporadic moments of Jones’ life starting around 2005 and continued to capture and edit material over 12 years.

Reception and Impact
The film grossed $634,029 worldwide, and scored a 6.1 out of 10 on IMDb. Reviewers applauded Jones’ fierce, androgynous and subversive performances throughout the film referring to her as an iconoclast, while also enjoying a glimpse at more vulnerable aspects to Jones’ character and life that haven’t been as visible before. In a New York Times interview, Jones expressed that she normally would not show such a vulnerable side, but she felt strong enough to reveal more vulnerability and tell her story after deciding to make the documentary and coming to the realization that a lot of her stage performances and persona are rooted in her desire to protect herself from her previous experiences of abuse from her step grandfather. Another New York Times reviewer speaks to Jones’ powerful subversive performances, art form and vulnerability displayed throughout the film and in Jones’ physicality throughout her career:"“Her art has thrived, in part, on a physical candor that both shocked people and redrew the boundaries of taste, beauty and eroticism around her masculinity, ebony skin and unrelenting intensity”"In a review from NPR that referred to an incident during the film where Jones is upset with a producer of a televised performance in France for the set production, costuming and dancers, comparing herself to “a madam in a whorehouse.” where many would view her as a “diva” rather than her male counter parts as “iconoclasts,” the film reveals her intensely motivated self-management that proves her willingness to maintain artistic integrity and vision through performance.