The director who stunned the world with his amazing Ayrton Senna documentary will be debuting a new film about Amy Winehouse at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

Filmmaker Asif Kapadia has collected never-before-seen and rare archival footage of the tragic singer for an untitled film and Focus Features International officials will shop the project to foreign buyers at Cannes.

The director tells The Hollywood Reporter, "This is an incredibly modern, emotional and relevant film that has the power to capture the zeitgeist and shine a light on the world we live in in a way that very few films can.

"Amy was a once-in-a-generation talent who captured everyone's attention; she wrote and sung from the heart, and everyone fell under her spell... As a society we celebrated her huge success, but then we were quick to judge her failings when it suited us."

Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning in 2011.