“Becoming Led Zeppelin” jointly won the award for best music documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, it was announced on November 9.
The film won the category in a tie with the film “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)”.
LedZepNews asked “Becoming Led Zeppelin” director Bernard MacMahon for his reaction to the award and he shared the following statement:
“We are completely stunned! We had absolutely no idea that we would win,” he said. “This is so meaningful, because as we discovered at the event, this award was exclusively voted for by the critics, some of whom introduced themselves after the awards and they were a highly intelligent and erudite bunch, with such thoughtful and perceptive comments about the movie.”
“As you probably know we slaved and sweated over every frame of this film,” he added. “And it means the world for the extraordinary team that put this together to get such a wonderful endorsement of their hard work. Dan Gitlin our Editor, Nick Bergh and Peter Henderson our sound guys, Kate Griffiths and Rich Remsberg our archivists, and Vern Moen our Cinematographer. And of course to Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Robert Plant for allowing us to make this film with complete artistic freedom in the knowledge that we are thrilled by the power of their music and inspired by the extraordinary hard work that went into to creating it.”
“Our hope is that 100 years from now, a 13-year-old kid can watch this film and be inspired by what they achieved. And last, but not least a special thanks from the bottom of our hearts to all the fans that went to the cinema and watched this film multiple times,” he said. “They not only have swelled our hearts, but they’ve opened the doors for other filmmakers to have a shot at getting their documentaries on the big screen again.”
On stage during the awards ceremony on November 9, MacMahon said: “I just want to say, Allison was the creator of this film, it’s her idea. I just dig the ditches.”
“We want to thank everybody at the Critics Choice for honouring the film. We want to thank Robert Redford, our mentor, who brought us to this country,” producer and writer Allison McGourty said.
“We wouldn’t be making films without him,” MacMahon added.
“And thanks to all of our team, especially our executive producers David and Cynthia who have supported us all the way. And congratulations to our fellow nominees. It was a wonderful roster. And thanks to everybody who voted for us,” McGourty said.
“We just want to say, we’re so proud to be in this company. All we’ve tried to do is just get people back into the cinemas to watch the films we make together,” MacMahon continued.
You can see the film winning from 28:40 in the below video:
The new award for “Becoming Led Zeppelin” comes after the film failed to gain a Grammy nomination in the best music film category last week.
Becoming Led Zeppelin is now out on Amazon . Nothing special just DVD or on Blu ray . Thought they would have done something for the uk market like they did in Japan . Yet another missed opportunity!