Jennifer Lopez’s biopic shows the glories and sorrows she experienced when she turned 50

The documentary on Jennifer Lopez, half the time kicked off the 21st edition of the Tribeca Festival last night. The prestigious annual New York event began with an intimate portrait of the actress and singer shot during the tumultuous year in which she turned 50, starred in the Super Bowl halftime show and was “almost” nominated. for an Oscar.

The first, at the United Palace in Washington Heights, was a fitting start to the festival, which stripped the word “cinema” from the name to better reflect the variety of concerts, speeches, TV premieres, podcasts and virtual reality exhibits that often fill your agenda with live events, as well as movie previews.

Previews and characters

This year’s festival will end on June 19th and will have many great personalities, such as Al Sharpton (the axis of the documentary that will close the festival, chatty) and Taylor Swift (who will talk to director Mike Mills about the short film he directed in 2021). There will also be meetingsHeat by Michael Mann) and his directorial beginnings (including Somewhere in Queens by Ray Romano).

But after a 2020 edition canceled due to the pandemic and a largely open-air festival in 2021 in the reopening of New York, Tribeca is back in the Bronx, restoring Tribeca to its original strength.

The biopic about J-Lo

The director of half the time Amanda Micheli hopes the documentary, which premieres June 14 on Netflix, will introduce a new side, sometimes vulnerable and often strong, to this famous artist.

“I had the impression that she was a successful and glamorous person – said Micheli – Then when I met her I thought: ‘This woman is a world-class athlete’, because she is like a sportswoman. The way she behaves and the way she works. She is an artist, but I am really connected to that (other) side of her. She is a warrior. ”

half the time it has some of the classic traits of documentaries about artists. It’s designed to be a loving portrait, but it sets itself apart by capturing the challenges even superstars face in an entertainment industry that isn’t always open to Latin artists. Even in one of the first videos to appear, a reporter asks Lopez about her butt.

For the documentary, Micheli assembled videos shot between late 2019 and early 2020 by the team of Lopez and others, as well as over a thousand hours of archival footage.

Over the time span of the film, Lopez starred and produced the drama Wall Street crookswhich led to her being regarded by many as an Oscar chance, and she was chosen to perform in Super Bowl 2020 with Shakira.

Both events were important moments for Lopez, but they also reflect the struggles he had to endure throughout his career. Sometimes we see the sharing of the Super Bowl stage half the time as a frustrating problem: Lopez says having two lead artists was “the worst idea”, not because she doesn’t like collaborating with Shakira, but because of lack of time to match each other’s songs.

J-Lo also campaigns for the message of the issue of separated immigrant children on the US-Mexico border to be incorporated into the show. Initially, Lopez wanted there to be a cameo from Bruce Springsteen’s song. Born in the United States.

A delusion

That same year, she was unexpectedly snubbed for her first Oscar nomination for a female-led production about the breakthrough in a male-controlled industry. The weight of these expectations is seen in scenes like the one after the Golden Globes where Lopez says “I let everyone down” after she didn’t win. Running out of an Oscar nomination, she said, was a disappointment, as many had said was inevitable.

“The truth is, I really thought I was going to be nominated,” Lopez says in the documentary.

“We didn’t want it to feel like a tragic and sugary moment,” said Micheli. “But it’s fascinating to see someone who really puts in and really wants something. Stars shouldn’t admit that they want an Oscar. But she admits in the film that she was excited, she wanted that recognition. Who wouldn’t?”

“The way the press has treated her, looking back, is a little crazy,” he said. “Seeing the video of people talking about her butt, I didn’t understand until I met her how that affected her, that she really felt that people questioned her talent and sometimes they still do. He really felt like he was always struggling to prove who he was and that he had to work twice as much as anyone else to prove it. I think a lot of marginalized people feel that way. ”

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