Sinéad O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares arrives in select theaters Sept. 23, streams on Showtime for subscribers Sept. 30, and has its linear debut on Showtime Sunday, Oct. 2.
An Irish singer, O’Connor’s first album, The Lion and the Cobra, came out in 1987. Her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, featured the single “Nothing Compares 2 U”, which Prince wrote.
In 1992, during a performance on Saturday Night Live, she tore a picture of Pope John Paul II and said, “Fight the real enemy.”
Kathryn Ferguson directs the documentary. It “charts Sinéad OʼConnorʼs phenomenal rise to worldwide fame and examines how she used her voice at the height of her stardom, before her iconoclastic personality led to her exile from the pop mainstream. Focusing on O’Connor’s prophetic words and deeds from 1987 to 1993, the film presents an authoritative, richly cinematic portrait of this fearless trailblazer through a contemporary feminist lens,” according to Showtime.
O’Connor speaks in the film.
The film is at lone theaters in New York and Los Angeles, which Showtime calls “an awards-qualifying run.”
Nothing Compares is produced by Eleanor Emptage and Michael Mallie for Tara Films (U.K.) and Ard Mhacha Productions (Ireland), in association with Field of Vision. Executive producers are Charlotte Cook, Lesley McKimm, Lucy Pullin, John Reynolds and Lisa Marie Russo.
The New York Times called the film "a worthwhile appreciation of the artist."
Showtime’s music documentaries have profiled Eric Clapton, the Eagles and Michael Jackson, among many others. ■
