Scenes for Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black filmed in Chiswick

Image above: Amy Winehouse

Filming at Metropolis Studios

Scenes for Back to Black, the controversial biopic of Amy Winehouse, are being filmed in Chiswick.

Starring Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse and Chiswick resident Eddie Marsan as her father, the film, which depicts the last ten years of her life, is being filmed inside Metropolis Studios at 70 Chiswick High Rd.

Residents local to the studio were notified by letter that filming would be taking place between 6 – 8 February. While no filming is taking place in the surrounding streets, some parking in the area has been suspended for the film’s tech vehicles and work on either side of these days in order to ‘prepare and reinstate the location’.

Parking bays on Cleveland Avenue, Airedale Avenue, Merton Avenue, Ravensmade Way. Netheravron Road, Homerfield Road and Thornton Avenue have been suspended during the filming.

The film is being directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, who has worked on other music-centred biopics including the John Lennon-focused Nowhere Boy.

This Amy Winehouse biopic looks absolutely vile… an extension of the relentless and bloodthirsty media coverage of her and her addiction. Not a shock that it appears her father will make some money off of this.

More trauma porn about female icons. Lovely. pic.twitter.com/i2SAH7fHWY

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) January 24, 2023

Above: Tweet by journalist Emma Vigeland

Film criticised as exploitative

Even before the production company has finished filming the upcoming biopic has met with a wave of criticism, with critics saying it represents a continuation of the media exploitation of her trauma, which plagued Amy Winehouse throughout her career.

She died at the age of just 27, after a long-standing history of drug and alcohol abuse. Her decline was keenly reported on by tabloid media, which many critics attribute to the deterioration of her wellbeing.

The Guardian’s acting deputy music editor, Shaad D’Souza, said of the film:

“Ultimately, it feels as if Back to Black is symptomatic of an entertainment industry that refuses to let the dead rest. Every year, major labels pump out new songs featuring demo vocals from dead artists such as Juice WRLD, XXXTentacion and Lil Peep; the DJ Kygo had a hit in 2019 with a version of Higher Love using old Houston vocals; in 2019, Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly were reanimated as holograms, and went on an extensive double-headline tour.

“In 2015, it seemed like Universal, Winehouse’s label, was attempting to avoid that fate for the late star by destroying her demos so nobody could attempt to cash in on her works-in-progress.

“More recently, it had begun to feel as if she was finally being remembered not as a purely tragic figure but as a generational talent who released two cherished records – and someone who wasn’t purely self-destructive, but a victim of systematic abuse and mental illness. Back to Black threatens not to honour that legacy, but to revive all the demeaning noise that obscured it in the first place.”

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