When pioneering producer and filmmaker Kirsty Bell set out to make a film about legendary American musician Eddie Cochrane, she didn’t just want to document his short career. Reflecting on the work of the musician, who died at the age of 21 while touring Britain in 1960, Bell felt she needed to “bring him back to life.” The result of that mission is Eddie Cochran: Remember Me, which closes this year’s Raindance Film Festival.
In an interview with Variety ahead of the film’s UK premiere, Bell said that producer Ben Charles Edwards was the first to bring up Cochrane’s name as a possible subject for his next film. At the time, veteran producer Bell had just taken a big step in his career, directing his 2021 feature debut A Bird Flew In. “That movie came from my head and my heart, and I wanted to connect the two again,” she says. “I wanted to do an emotional journey because that’s how you get the best out of it.”
Ms. Bell, who founded Goldfinch Entertainment in 2016, knew and loved Cochran’s music, but quickly realized she knew little about his life. “There were a lot of things that connected him to modern music,” she recalls. “I had a pad on my desk where I wrote down ideas, and I started writing my thoughts around his name. All of a sudden, a mind map of him appeared, linking him to basically everyone and everything that happened in the music world after that. It was amazing.”
When Bell decided to tell the story of the “pioneer” Cochrane, he knew he didn’t want to make a “normal documentary” that just “talks to a bunch of musicians about the Eddie songs they covered.” “This is about heritage,” she added, explaining how she began working closely with executive producer Michel Arnoush to ensure a wide selection of talking heads that could reflect Cochrane’s influence. One notable person is actor Kiefer Sutherland, who is a huge fan of Cochran’s work and features prominently in the film.
“We wanted to bring in people who were deeply influenced by Eddie or knew Eddie. Kiefer is a great example of that, because through our research we found out that he was supposed to play Eddie in the biopic when he was only 18 or 19 years old,” she recalls. “Even though the movie was canceled, Kiefer remained a fan. He has a great mind and is also a musician, so it was perfect.”
Kiefer Sutherland in ‘Eddie Cochran: Remember Me’, courtesy of Fremantle
Sutherland’s roster includes big names such as Keith Richards, Rod Stewart, John Waters, Roger Daltrey, Cliff Richard and Yungblud. Regarding the latter, Bell said the young British musician had “always been on her list” and recalled how he wowed fans with a concert at the Royal Albert Hall before he became a huge international star. “They all looked like they were part of a gang, like they knew something about each other. They all dressed alike, and they all stuck together. Before Yungblud was famous, I remember thinking, ‘This is young Eddie. He’s part of this tribe, and they’ll support him wherever he goes. He’s a modern-day rock star.’
Yungblud’s fandom gave Bell access to hundreds of fan letters sent to Eddie, which became a key element of the film. Formally, the filmmakers also wanted to “bring Eddie back to life.” “There’s so little video footage of him in the world, so the only way to do it was to restore it.” She then cast Jack Harris on screen as Cochran, recreating key moments in the musician’s life from a budding singer struggling to get his singles played on the radio to becoming the subject of an Elvis-like mania.
But Bell insists none of it would have happened without the support of Cochrane’s family. Asked about Eddie’s relationship with living relatives, the filmmaker said it was “very difficult to get started” because the team “didn’t really know the path to them and knew that other people had approached them in the past and they refused.”
So Bell approached Cindy Levin, a prominent American entertainment lawyer who was “the gatekeeper of the Cochran family and the greatness of Hollywood.” The two had an hour-long first meeting, which led to Levin introducing Bell to Patty Hickey, Cochran’s only living sibling. “When we showed them a very early teaser that we had created and sent out to potential contributors, she just burst into tears.”
Despite the initial warm reception, Bell wanted to show the finished film to Cochran’s family. “I was scared to let them see the film. What if they felt I didn’t portray something correctly? What if they thought I was insulting or not good enough? So we immediately sent the film to them and they They loved it when they saw it. We had to wait. And when they came back and told me how much they loved it, it was a huge relief because they’re the only ones I have to please.”
Bell says he’s “surprised” about Raindance’s closing, five years after “A Bird Flew In” premiered at the same festival. “You might think that making a documentary wouldn’t reach a wider audience, but having someone see it as something bigger and closing out the festival with two major screenings means making an independent film will appeal to the widest possible audience.” The screening is special because Cochran received the posthumous Raindance Icon Award, which goes to Eddie’s sister and niece, and will be displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, along with his original Gretsch guitar and other trophies.
Now, with ‘Don’t Forget Me’ making the rounds on the festival circuit, Bell is once again thinking about what’s next. “I had written a script for another drama, and some documentaries about interesting people came my way,” she says. “Obviously, we’ve got ‘The Goldfinch’ and everything that goes with it, but the next step in terms of directing is to see if we can combine what we did with ‘The Bird Flew Down’ and what we did with ‘Eddie’ and create something that feels like a step up from there. I’m not going to direct a movie every year, so it has to be both of those things.”
“Eddie Cochran: Don’t Forget Me” is produced by Goldfinch Entertainment in association with the Cochran Family Estate and Universal Music Enterprises. Fremantle will handle international distribution.
