No harm intended in Winehouse biopic 'AMY', director says

By Rollo Ross CANNES, France (Reuters) - Asif Kapadia, the director of "AMY", the biopic on Amy Winehouse that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, said there was no harm intended after the late singer-songwriter's father harshly criticized the film. Mitch Winehouse insisted he wanted to disconnect himself from the film and it was reported he wanted to seek legal action. "It wasn't the intention to upset anyone, but just to show what was going on in her life," Kapadia told reporters. "There's a lot of turmoil, there's a lot of stuff going on in her life and that's why things turned out the way they did. That's it really." The author of "Back to Black" and "Rehab" died of alcohol poisoning at 27 at her north London home in 2011. The producer of the film, James Gay-Rees, also found the criticism too harsh, saying: "It's very hard. It's his daughter at the end of the day and it's his right to have those feelings about it, but we basically were very objective about the film. We were asked to make the film. "We went in with a blank piece of paper and did a lot of research for a couple of years and this is our findings from the research so we think it's balanced." Kapadia said it was fitting that "AMY" was premiered on La Croisette. "It's always a dream, if you make a film, the ultimate place you want to premiere your film is Cannes, so it's the ultimate for a film maker. It's where you want to be," he said. "AMY" was screening out of competition at the Cannes film festival on Saturday. (Writing by Julien Pretot; Editing by Louise Heavens)