CIFF: Montreal filmmaker’s documentary chronicles career of gifted guitarist Ellen McIlwaine – Calgary Herald
Sep 19, 2024
When filmmaker Alfonso Maiorana first set out to make a documentary about musician Ellen McIlwaine, he was planning a globe-trotting affair that would have had the “Goddess of slide” accompany him to various places that were central to her life.
Things didn’t go as planned. Maiorana had befriended McIlwaine a few years before beginning production and had finally convinced the reluctant musician to do the documentary. The award-winning filmmaker began shooting in February 2021 in Calgary, where McIlwaine lived since the early 1990s. The idea was to shoot interviews with her at the beginning of production and the end. In between, she would travel with him to Woodstock, New Orleans, Japan, Australia, Nashville, Toronto and Montreal among other spots.
But just months after production began, McIlwaine was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She spent her final days in a Calgary hospice and died on June 23, 2021, at the age of 75.
