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"Imagine you're on stage at the Grammys and you're thinking
about what's going on back home," Batiste said of the night in
2022 when he won five trophies including best album.
"We just won the biggest award in music. But everything is put
in proper perspective when life is giving you this sort of
moment," he said.
Batiste and his wife, journalist and author Suleika Jaouad,
teamed up with filmmaker Matthew Heineman to make "American
Symphony", which was initially going to just capture Batiste's
creative process leading up to a performance at New York's
prestigious Carnegie Hall.
It did just that, and it also showed Jaouad going through a
second bone marrow transplant while Batiste was winning awards.
"I think it felt really important to show what it's really like
to go through an illness like this... with the hope that it
might offer some companionship and comfort to people who are
similarly in the trenches of treatment," she said.
"I owe so much to them for having the bravery to open up their
lives at such an unbelievably sensitive and critical juncture,"
said Heineman who shot scenes in Jaouad's hospital room as well
as Batiste's bedroom.
"I didn't want to tell the story from the outside. I want it to
be an experiential film with them through all the twists and
turns," he said.
Sitting alongside her husband in London, Jaouad said she was
"doing really well" and despite being told that she would be in
treatment indefinitely, she was focused on the present.
"My practice has become to try to live every day as if it's my
first, to wake up as a newborn, with a sense of curiosity and
awe and wonder."
Batiste has recently been nominated for another five Grammy
Awards, and this time around the couple expect to attend the
event in 2024 together.
As for the film, which is available on streaming platform
Netflix from Nov. 29, Heineman hopes "it not only brings joy,
but also provides a roadmap on how to confront difficult
moments".
(Editing by Nick Macfie)
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