A new documentary on Val Kilmer, composed almost entirely of home videos from Kilmer’s personal archive, is set for release on August 6th through A24 in partnership with Amazon Studios.
Entitled simply Val, the film is co-directed by Ting Poo and Leon Scott, and pulls from 800 hours of footage spanning more than 40 years. In piecing together the doc, Poo and Scott culled through everything from 16mm home movies Kilmer made with his brothers, to behind-the-scenes footage from the set of blockbusters like Top Gun, Tombstone, and Batman. As Kilmer has lost his ability to speak due to throat cancer, the footage is narrated by his son, Jack.
“I’ve lived a magical life, and I’ve captured quite a bit of it. I was the first guy I know who owned a video camera. I have thousands of hours of video tapes and film reels I’ve shot throughout my life and career,” says Val, through Jack, in the film’s newly revealed trailer. “I was recently diagnosed with throat cancer, and am still recovering. It’s difficult to talk and be understood. But I want to tell my story more than ever.”
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Amazon Studios, which will release the Val through its Amazon Prime Video, describes it as a “raw, wildly original, and unflinching [film]” that “reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.”
Watch the trailer below, and look for Val on Amazon Prime Video starting August 6th.