Tara Wood’s QT8: The First Eight, the long-awaited and much-delayed documentary on Quentin Tarantino will finally be shown publicly.
QT8: The First Eight, originally titled 21 Years: Tarantino, will screen for buyers in Cannes on Sunday, just two days before Tarantino’s new (ninth) film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, world premieres at the Cannes Film Fest.
The documentary chronicles the making of Tarantino’s 8 films through interviews with his cast and producers, and features interviews with Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Foxx, Diane Kruger and Christoph Waltz.
Wood had originally produced the film with The Weinstein Company but cut ties following the sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein.
A legal battle to regain control of her movie followed, especially when TWC fell into bankruptcy. In the ensuing sale of TWC assets, Lantern Entertainment acquired the Weinstein Company library, including Wood’s film.
“My movie ended up with Lantern and they wanted to finish it but I said absolutely not,” Wood said. “They didn’t have the relationships I had with the participants and I didn’t trust anyone else with this film. I ended up backing the film myself. Then I went back in and re-edited to reflect Harvey’s story.”
QT8 addresses the Weinstein scandal and others surrounding Tarantino — from Uma Thurman’s car crash during the shooting of Kill Bill to accusations of racism or gratuitous violence in the director’s movies — but they are not the focus of the feature.
Instead, like Wood’s previous documentary, 21 Years: Richard Linklater, the film is a celebration of an iconic director.
“I needed Harvey and the scandal to be in there but this isn’t a documentary about Weinstein,” Wood says. While she believes Tarantino bears some responsibility — “as we all do” for keeping silent before the #MeToo scandal broke, she does not think that tarnishes his “legacy as a filmmaker.”
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino’s 9th film, and the first not to be produced by Weinstein, will premiere in Cannes on Tuesday, May 21, 25 years to the day that Pulp Fiction screened here.
That movie then won Tarantino the Palme d’Or for best film, with the blessing of Clint Eastwood, who was jury’s president in 1994, and to be nominated for the Best Picture, Director, and others Oscars.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is also the first Tarantino film to be produced by a studio, with Sony releasing the movie, which stars Brad Pitt, Leonardo Di Caprio and Margot Robbie, worldwide.
“I think it is great to see Sony stepping up and giving Quentin the freedom he has always enjoyed in his career just on an ever bigger stage, with bigger toys,” says Wood.
QT8: The First Eight, will screen at the Gray 4 theater in Cannes at 5.30 pm Sunday, May 19.
Wood is handling worldwide sales for the film through Wood Entertainment banner.
