Janis Ian Documentary, Janis Ian - Breaking Silence, Slated for 2025
Published
“I have always thought that Janis Ian
Was one of the greatest writers
And singers in the whole wide world.”
— Dolly Parton
“Janis Ian is the best young singer in America today…”
— Ella Fitzgerald (at the 1976 GRAMMY Awards)
Janis Ian Documentary,
Janis Ian – Breaking Silence,
Projected for June 2025
Broadcast Premiere
On American Masters on PBS
Jean Smart, Lili Tomlin, Joan Baez,
Arlo Guthrie And Others to be Featured on Doc
LOS ANGELES — She’s been called a wunderkind, an outsider, a legend, a free thinker, an icon, a troublemaker, a trailblazer, and one of the best singer/songwriters in the world. She’s won GRAMMYs, lifetime achievement awards, and humanitarian honors. And now Janis Ian can add documentary film subject to her long list of creative endeavors with the in progress, feature-length music documentary Janis Ian – Breaking Silence (working title).Janis Ian – Breaking Silence (working title) is a moving and inspiring tribute to an iconic artist that blends rare archival footage with candid interviews, and performances with the intimacy of a home movie. The film explores themes of creativity, resilience, and social justice, as well as the power of music to inspire and connect people across generations. It looks at Ian’s six decades of trials and tribulations where she’s overcome homophobia, record industry misogyny, and a life-threatening illness to produce an indelible body of work that continues to draw large audiences around the world.
Along with Ian herself, the film will feature interviews with a wide arrange of creatives from the music world (Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Kathy Mattea, Janey Street, Kye Fleming, Tom Paxton, Jon Vezner) to actors (Lili Tomlin, Jean Smart, Laurie Metcalf) to journalists (Ann Powers, Anthony DeCurtis, Stephen Holden).
Janis Ian – Breaking Silence (working title) is helmed by award-winning director/producer Varda Bar-Kar, best known for Big Voice (Netflix, PBS) and Fandango at the Wall (HBO, HBOMax).
After a festival and theatrical run, the documentary will have its exclusive U.S. broadcast premiere on American Masters on PBS in June 2025.
“Janis Ian – Breaking Silence chronicles the singer’s epic life journey beginning with her Jewish childhood on a chicken farm in New Jersey; her youthful struggle with notoriety following her hit ‘Society’s Child’ (about an interracial relationship); her ascent to fame with the single ‘At Seventeen’ (about body shaming); and her release of the disruptive album Breaking Silence which she leveraged to come up out publicly about her loving relationship with her wife of 34 years,” explains the filmmakers.
The last time Ian opened up about her life in depth was in her autobiography, Society’s Child: My Autobiography(2009, Penguin Random House), which won the GRAMMY Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2013. The book also earned an Audie Award for Narration by the Author and was a Booklist Top 10 Biography-Audiobooks in 2013.
The riveting read also earned the praise of O, The Oprah Magazine, which wrote, “Society’s Child is the hugely readable autobiography of an artist who has lived through success and crushing hardship but knows that ‘you can’t sing and cry at the same time.’ Sing on!” Legendary artist Joan Baez said of Ian’s book, “Deftly written, the life experiences described by Janis Ian in this engaging memoir gives us a peek into the anatomy of a brilliant songwriter.”
In 2023, the artist continued to release music and attend events, including mining her own musical vaults for a variety of compilations to be released. The first two are Worktapes & Demos Vol 1, which includes a mix of early versions, outtakes, and unreleased songs from her decades-long career, and Live at the Calderone Theater 1975, recorded at the famed theater in Hempstead, New York. Ian kicked off 2024, with an appearance at TradFest in Dublin, Ireland in January. TradFest honored Ian with their Lifetime Achievement Award, and Ian waxed poetic about her life in a special evening dubbed, “Janis Ian – A Life Between the Lines.”
Worktapes & Demos Vol 1
Live at the Calderone Theater 1976
For more information on the Janis Ian – Breaking Silence (working title) documentary, please visit www.janisiandocumentary.
About American Masters Pictures
Founded in 2016 by executive producer Michael Kantor, American Masters Pictures is The WNET Group’s theatrical imprint for documentaries co-produced by American Masters, the award-winning biography series that celebrates our arts and culture. American Masters Pictures partners with filmmakers, distributors and sales agents on non-broadcast releases including film festivals, theatrical, online, DVD, VOD and OTT, with PBS as the exclusive U.S. broadcaster of all films as part of the American Masters series. Films include Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Itzhak, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise and Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable. Since 1986, American Masters has set the standard for documentary film profiles, accruing widespread critical acclaim: 28 Emmy Awards — including 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special — 14 Peabodys, an Oscar, three Grammys, two Producers Guild Awards and many other honors. The series is a production of THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for The WNET Group. American Masters Pictures was represented by three films at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021: Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It, Ailey and Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir.
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