Michel Legrand, the late Oscar-winning composer and central figure in the widely influential French New Wave, is vividly evoked in never-before-seen archives and interviews with his many famous friends and admirers in David Hertzog Dessites’ heartfelt documentary, OnceUpon a Time Michel Legrand.

With a musical legacy spanning many decades, Legrand was the man behind dozens of iconic scores including Agnès Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7, JacquesDemy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Barbra Streisand’s iconic musical Yentl. His collaborations with many of music’s biggest names are also fabled, none more so than Legrand’s collaborations with American jazz virtuoso Miles Davis, which produced the iconic album Legrand Jazz and the score to Australian director Rolf de Heer’s 1991 film Dingo.
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A tribute to and vivid portrait of the man, the film blends rare archival footage with scenes from Orson Welles’s posthumous The Other Side of the Wind, Legrand’s final composer credit, and his triumphant last performance in Seville in 2018. Made with intimate access to Legrand prior to his 2019 passing, Once Upon a Time celebrates a career defined by bold creativity and enduring melody.

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