My Father and the Man in Black

Heart and feeling is soaked through it like the sweat in Cash's guitar strap.

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My Father and the Man in Black

Before there was Johnny and June, there was Johnny and Saul.

How did Saul Holiff, a Jew from Canada, become the manager of the legendary Johnny Cash? And why, at the height of Cash’s career, did Holiff quit? Following his father's suicide, director Jonathan Holiff discovers hundreds of letters and telephone recordings with Cash during his crazed pill-fueled 1960s, triumphs at Folsom and San Quentin and marriage to June Carter.

The film also supplies the ending missing from “Walk the Line.” Here, for the first time, we get a behind-the-scenes look at Cash’s conversion to fundamentalist Christianity in the early 1970s and the effect it had on his career and on his Jewish manager.

An intense personal adventure that happens to feature one of 20th-century music's greatest icons, MY FATHER AND THE MAN IN BLACK tells the inside story of 'bad boy' Johnny Cash, his talented but
troubled manager, Saul Holiff, and a son searching for his father in the shadow of a legend.

“Poignant and fascinating" ~ Sam Wigley, Sight & Sound (UK)

"Imaginatively crafted, ruthlessly honest, and genuinely haunting." ~ Ken Eisner, The Georgia Straight

AWARDS:

WINNER "Best Documentary" at EDINDOCS Edinburgh (Scotland)
WINNER "Best Documentary” at RADAR Hamburg International (Germany)
WINNER "Best Documentary" at Available Light Film Festival (Canada)
WINNER "Best Documentary" at Lewiston Auburn Film Festival (USA)
WINNER "Best Documentary" at Buffalo Niagara Film Festival (USA)
WINNER "Best Documentary" at Memphis International Film & Music Festival (USA)
WINNER "Orson Welles Award" at Tiburon International Film Festival (USA)
TOP 10 Audience Favorite at Vancouver International Film Festival (Canada)
TOP 10 Audience Favorite at Calgary International Film Festival (Canada)
Not Rated
Genre
Documentary
Runtime
88
Language
English
Director
Jonathan Holiff
Writer(s)
Jonathan Holiff
Cast
Saul Holiff, Jonathan Holiff
FEATURED REVIEW
Andrew Pulver, Guardian [UK]

Former talent agent Jonathan Holiff directs this documentary about his dad, Saul, a Canadian-born hustler and music promoter who hit the jackpot when he met a young Johnny Cash and became his manager. Holiff Jr is clearly still bitter over the experience of being raised by such a driven father (at ...

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