This documentary follows Dalton Harris whose storming 2018 triumph left him fearing failure and facing homophobic abuse, especially in his native Jamaica
This documentary, co-directed by Kim Longinotto and Scottish film-maker Franky Murray Brown, is a complex, intimate, sober look at someone making it in the music business, or maybe not making it, or maybe making it in something more important instead. It is candid about something rarely acknowledged in the life of any performer: the day-to-day, minute-by-minute dread of failure, of simply one day falling off the high-wire.
Dalton Harris is the superbly gifted young Jamaican singer who, in 2018, won TV’s The X Factor, after a struggle that included singing bizarre Nirvana covers on a cruise ship. The clip of him storming The X Factor audition with his version of Elton John’s Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word is almost worth the admission price. Dalton duly got a precarious year’s contract.
This documentary, co-directed by Kim Longinotto and Scottish film-maker Franky Murray Brown, is a complex, intimate, sober look at someone making it in the music business, or maybe not making it, or maybe making it in something more important instead. It is candid about something rarely acknowledged in the life of any performer: the day-to-day, minute-by-minute dread of failure, of simply one day falling off the high-wire.
Dalton Harris is the superbly gifted young Jamaican singer who, in 2018, won TV’s The X Factor, after a struggle that included singing bizarre Nirvana covers on a cruise ship. The clip of him storming The X Factor audition with his version of Elton John’s Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word is almost worth the admission price. Dalton duly got a precarious year’s contract.
- 1/30/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Normally on shoots, veteran documentary maker Kim Longinotto films far away from her native England, often capturing the lives of women in desperate situations over the course of a few weeks. With her latest film, Dalton’s Dream, things ran rather differently. Having watched his victory on the British X Factor in 2018, Longinotto reached out to Dalton Harris, interested in documenting his life in a new country with a new record contract. An initial three-month shoot morphed into more than four years, held up by both the pandemic and the turbulence of Harris’s life as he found himself persecuted for […]
The post “All Filmmakers are Struggling to Find Money”: Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown on Dalton’s Dream first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “All Filmmakers are Struggling to Find Money”: Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown on Dalton’s Dream first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 7/6/2023
- by Carol Nahra
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Normally on shoots, veteran documentary maker Kim Longinotto films far away from her native England, often capturing the lives of women in desperate situations over the course of a few weeks. With her latest film, Dalton’s Dream, things ran rather differently. Having watched his victory on the British X Factor in 2018, Longinotto reached out to Dalton Harris, interested in documenting his life in a new country with a new record contract. An initial three-month shoot morphed into more than four years, held up by both the pandemic and the turbulence of Harris’s life as he found himself persecuted for […]
The post “All Filmmakers are Struggling to Find Money”: Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown on Dalton’s Dream first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “All Filmmakers are Struggling to Find Money”: Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown on Dalton’s Dream first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 7/6/2023
- by Carol Nahra
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
The pressure cooker nature of reality television meets the unblinking spotlight of fan expectancies and the fickle nature of fame in Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown’s moving documentary. Their cameras follow The X Factor’s 2018 winner Dalton Harris over the four-year period during which he aced the ITV singing competition and tried to forge his subsequent career, while also coming to terms with his childhood and exploring his gender identity.
The raw talent of Harris is striking from the outset but, crucially for television ratings, he also had the sort of back story that shows like The X Factor love. Born in Jamaica, which made him unique as the first non-British and Black winner of the show, he also had a turbulent, impoverished upbringing with the sort of triumph over adversity that viewers can't resist. Where a mainstream TV channel might handle all of this in sensationalist fashion veteran.
The raw talent of Harris is striking from the outset but, crucially for television ratings, he also had the sort of back story that shows like The X Factor love. Born in Jamaica, which made him unique as the first non-British and Black winner of the show, he also had a turbulent, impoverished upbringing with the sort of triumph over adversity that viewers can't resist. Where a mainstream TV channel might handle all of this in sensationalist fashion veteran.
- 6/16/2023
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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