Hey guys, Jana here, 

Here is the premiere of the trailer for the new film ‘Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me‘, from legendary documentary director Sam Pollard. The film will have it’s debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. This is the first major film doc to examine Davis‘ vast talent and his journey identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America.

Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated and contradictory. Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice and shifting political territory. He was the veteran of increasingly outdated show business traditions trying to stay relevant; he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America; he was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to another persecuted minority.

Featuring new interviews with such luminaries as Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg, Quincy Jones and Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis’ vast personal collection and excerpts from his electric performances in television, film and concert, ‘Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me‘ explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory blazed across the major flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.

I want to live, not merely survive

And I won’t give up this dream

Of life that keeps me alive.

I’ve gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me

The dream that I see makes me what I am.

I’m Puerto Rican, Jewish, colored, and married to a white woman.

When I move into a neighborhood, people start running in four ways at the same time.

–Sammy Davis, Jr.

‘Sammy Davis Jr.: I Gotta Be Me‘ is an American Masters Pictures production in co-production with ZDF in collaboration with ARTE, directed by Sam Pollard and produced by Sally Rosenthal and Michael Kantor. The film is edited by Steven Weschler and written by Laurence Maslon. Michael Kantor is executive producer.