Half Japanese

Kurt Cobain About A Son is a rock and roll film like no other — an intimate and moving portrait of the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain told entirely in his own voice — without celebrity soundbites, news clips, sensational tabloid angles or attempts to mimic a grunge aesthetic. Based on more than 25 hours of never-before-heard audiotaped interviews conducted by noted journalist Michael Azerrad for his book Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, the film offers audiences a compelling re-introduction to one of the most interesting and important cultural figures of the late 20th century. For this unique film, director AJ Schnack assembled selections from the Azerrad interviews and merged them with newly filmed, evocative imagery of the three cities in Washington state that played a major role in Cobain's life: Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle. Shot entirely on 35mm film, Schnack brings the Northwest to life in vivid detail: the logging industry where Cobain’s father worked, the small bars where local bands played their first shows, the endlessly overcast sky. These impressionistic images, many of which were filmed in locations that were key to Cobain’s life — his home, apartment, school, record label, etc. — are set to an evocative original score by noted Northwest musician and producer Steve Fisk, who produced Nirvana’s Blew EP, and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard, as well as the music of more than 20 artists who influenced or touched Cobain during his life, from childhood favorites Arlo Guthrie and Queen, to the influential punk bands Bad Brains and Big Black, to his Sub Pop contemporaries Mudhoney and Mark Lanegan to legendary music figures Iggy Pop, David Bowie and R.E.M. Please note: this soundtrack does not contain the music of Kurt Cobain or Nirvana. It does contain audio excerpts of Kurt Cobain speaking.