New York, NY – Celebrating the film’s 10th anniversary, Mercury Studios is re-releasing the acclaimed feature documentary Heaven Adores You in select theaters beginning August 6th.

Heaven Adores You explores the life and music of singer/songwriter Elliott Smith. The film includes excerpts from previously unreleased and unfinished songs along with his best-known tracks such as the Academy Award nominated “Miss Misery,” “Happiness,” “Son Of Sam,” and “”Waltz #2.”

Nickolas Rossi, director of the 2014 film, states about the beloved singer and songwriter, “Ten years ago, our film’s worldwide run at festivals and eventual wide release touched audiences and fans on five continents, serving as an homage to Elliott Smith’s unmatched musical legacy. As time has passed, his influence on music and his significance as a cultural icon have only deepened, warranting a renewed spotlight on his life and work.”

Heaven Adores You is an intimate, meditative inquiry that showcases Smith’s rise to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s, a promising career that was cut short by his untimely death at the age of 34 in 2003. By threading his music through the dense yet often isolating landscapes of the three major cities he lived in: Portland, New York & Los Angeles, Heaven Adores You takes an affectionate and absorbing look at the work of a truly genuine talent and presents an earnest review of the singer’s prolific songwriting and the impact it continues to have on fans, friends, and fellow musicians.

Producers Jeremiah Gurzi, Kevin Moyer, and Marc Smolowitz said, “Over the past decade, we’ve witnessed an explosion of creativity in the documentary field and an increase in the number of powerful documentaries that help us understand complex artists and their narratives. With our work on HEAVEN ADORES YOU, we always sought to offer global audiences that sort of enduring love letter to a great artist.”

They added, “Our upcoming 10th anniversary re-release will offer Smith’s established fans a chance to reconnect with his musical genius and introduce his music and life story to an entirely new generation of listeners. We are especially proud to be sharing our film again in cinemas on August 6th, 2024, which would have been Elliott Smith’s 55th birthday.”

Director Rossi has also created a new trailer to celebrate the film’s release, which includes previously unreleased material. It is available on the film’s YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/GxPdw8CQ2Ck

Ticket sales and venue information are available at HeavenAdoresYou.com

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MERCURY STUDIOS

Mercury Studios is a full-service production studio, focused on telling compelling stories through the lens of music.

Current and recent projects include Oscar and BAFTA award nominated American Symphony, directed by Matthew Heineman for the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions/Netflix, If These Walls Could Sing, directed by Mary McCartney for Disney+, My Life as a Rolling Stone for the BBC and MGM+, Shania Twain: Not Just A Girl for Netflix and This Town, a six-part series for the BBC from writer, creator, and executive producer Steven Knight. Mercury Studios also produced Sam Smith: Live at the Royal Albert Hall for BBC, Billie Eilish’s Overheated at the O2 London and Lang Lang Plays Disney for Disney+.

Editorially independent, Mercury Studios is powered by Universal Music Group and represents the world’s leading catalog of music-related content, consisting of thousands of hours of premium music-driven film and television programming.

HEAVEN ADORES YOU – CORE TEAM

Nickolas Rossi (Director / Producer / Editor) 

Nickolas Rossi is a filmmaker based in NYC.  As a cinematographer, his non-fiction film work includes the award-winning feature documentaries, ADJUST YOUR COLOR (2008) by Loren Mendell, THE POWER OF TWO (2011) by Marc Smolowitz, THE FEAR OF 13 (2015)  by David Sington, Netflix’s MERCURY 13 (2018) by David Sington & Heather Walsh, and THE SHERIFF (2020) by Grace Sweeney. He is also a frequent cinematographer on the National AIDS Memorial’s series, SURVIVING VOICES by Jörg Fockele. Nickolas’ directorial debut, HEAVEN ADORES YOU, a feature-length documentary about musician Elliott Smith, had its world premiere in 2014 at the San Francisco International Film Festival and screened at over 40 festivals across 5 continents. Following its worldwide release in 2015 by Eagle Rock and Specticast,  the film is now distributed through Mercury Studios.

J.T. Gurzi (Producer)

J.T. Gurzi was born in the American Southwest and raised in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, USA. He is a multidisciplinary filmmaker with substantial experience across numerous aspects of the motion picture, television, and commercial industries. He more notably produced the documentary HEAVEN ADORES YOU (Mercury Studios), an intimate and meditative inquiry into the life and music of Elliott Smith. He most recently directed “Boom Boom” for JENNY LEE (Rough Trade Records) and produced a GOT YOUR SIX Public Service Announcement (PSA) honoring returning military veterans. In addition, J.T. is a Panavision ‘New Filmmaker’ program recipient for his directorial debut and a distinguished graduate of the UCLA Theatre, Film & Television MFA Screenwriting program. His below-the-line screen credits include Academy Award-winning films and Emmy Award-winning shows. He is a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and Producers Guild of America (PGA) qualified. J.T. is currently developing a boutique slate of projects with prestige Hollywood companies.

Kevin Moyer (Producer / Composer / Music Supervisor)

Kevin Moyer is an award-winning creative, producer, and music supervisor who has done production and supervision work on various artist albums, musical scores and soundtracks, and music videos, in addition to various and eclectic independent and feature films, as well as content appearing in all broadcast, cinema, and radio media worldwide. Moyer independently recorded and released the "Live From Nowhere Near You" charity album series which includes friends and collaborators like Modest Mouse, The Strokes, Gus Van Sant, Spoon, Bright Eyes, The Shins, Daniel Johnston, and more. Moyer was Producer and Music Supervisor, also recording and providing the score for the posthumous Elliott Smith documentary "Heaven Adores You", as well as producing the soundtrack for the film of previously unreleased Elliott Smith music. Moyer also worked on the music documentary "The Glamour and The Squalor" about hall of fame radio DJ Marco Collins, as well as produced both soundtrack and score albums for the film. Moyer also worked on recently released films: "All I Can Say" (the last days of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon); “Boy Howdy! The Story of CREEM Magazine"; "Strange Negotiations" (David Bazan and Pedro The Lion); "The Last Blockbuster";  "Claydream: The Will Vinton Story"; "Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story”; and a groundbreaking 360 video for the Dandy Warhols single “Be Alright”. Currently, Moyer is finishing up a film with and in partnership with the Willie Nelson family ("Lovey: King Of The Roadies"), another charity album series in partnership with members of Pearl Jam, and is keeping busy with more yet to be announced music albums and films that are currently in production.

Marc Smolowitz (Producer) 

Marc Smolowitz is a multi-award-winning director, producer, executive producer, and consulting producer who has been significantly involved in over 50 successful independent films. The combined footprint of his works has touched 250+ film festivals & markets on 5 continents, yielding substantial worldwide sales to theatrical, television, and VOD outlets, notable box office receipts, and numerous awards and nominations. His credits include films that have screened at top-tier festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Venice, Tribeca, Locarno, SXSW, Chicago, Palm Springs, SFFILM, AFI DOCS, IDFA, DOC NYC, CPH: DOX, Tokyo, Melbourne, Viennale, Jerusalem, among others. In 2009, Marc founded 13th Gen, a San Francisco-based boutique entertainment company that works with a dynamic range of independent film partners globally to oversee the financing, production, post-production, marketing, sales, and distribution efforts of a vibrant portfolio of films and filmmakers. With talent development as its focus, the company is typically involved in some 10-15 projects concurrently and has successfully advanced Marc’s career-long commitment to powerful social issue filmmaking across all genres. In 2016, he received one of the prestigious Gotham Fellowships to attend the Cannes Film Festival’s Producers Network marking him as one of the USA’s most influential independent film producers.

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