The trailer and release details for new Pete Doherty documentary Stranger In My Own Skin have been revealed. Watch full trailer for the film above.
Previously announced as debuting at Zurich Film Festival, Peter Doherty — Stranger In My Own Skin is directed by the Libertines and Babyshambles singer’s wife Katia deVidas, who also plays in his other solo outfit band The Puta Madres.
Now, it has been announced that the film will hit cinemas from November 9, 2023 – with screenings taking place in the UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Canada, Ireland and Austria.
The poster for new Pete Doherty documentary ‘Stranger In My Own Skin’
A synopsis describes the feature-length documentary as “following English punk singer-songwriter and Libertines’ legendary frontman, Peter Doherty, as he plunges into the depths of addiction at the very height of his popularity.
“Over a period of 10 years, the artist was intimately filmed by director-musician Katia deVidas who shot more than 200 hours of exclusive footage. Doherty shares, in his own words, his emotionally charged fight to overcome his demons as he emerges from darkness back into the light.”
The trailer, made up of new and archival footage, begins with the frontman ominously paraphrasing a lyric from Babyshambles b-side ‘The Man Who Came To Stay’ (“If the whole world tells you, ‘you are the one’, I defy you not to believe them, my son”) before rolling through clips of Doherty’s time as tabloid-fodder and Reading Festival headliner via his redemption through love and fatherhood. It also features appearances from The Clash‘s Mick Jones and Amy Winehouse.
Visit here for a list of participating cinemas and for ticket details.
Speaking to NME about the act of looking back on his life back 2019, Doherty said that he had “a huge fucking problem with age”.
“I didn’t ever admit to it because I never really felt it, but I heard you say it there and I’m thinking ‘Fucking hell, I really don’t wanna die’,” he said. “Part of me for a long time just thought it would make a lot of sense and be a lot easier all round if I did snuff it.”
Now drug-free and over three-years clean – having “nearly lost his feet” – Doherty is also gearing up to release a new album with The Libertines. Earlier this week, drummer Gary Powell confirmed that the band’s first record since 2015’s ‘Anthems Of Doomed Youth‘ would be arriving in January 2024.
30.09.21 ♥️ pic.twitter.com/XR1FGVWOCN
— Peter Doherty (@petedoherty) October 5, 2021
Powell also told NME previously that his focus was on “forging forward” with the band’s fourth album. “The good thing is everybody’s been writing,” he said. “Obviously, we’re not going to try and reinvent the wheel… but I think we can push the boat out a little more while still bringing something that has the same emotional integrity and dynamism that the audience craves when they come to a Libertines show.”
When they first started work on the record in 2019, Doherty said that the band had been exploring a number of ambitious directions on new material, likening it to the diversity of The Clash‘s divisive ‘Sandinista’.
“Carl wants to do a ‘Sandinista’ thing with all these mad ideas that we’ve got, so we’ll have all these freestyle things and folky things, then there’s the more traditional Doherty/Barat songs,” Doherty said at the time. “I don’t think the Gary and John songs are part of that, because they’re really, really strong songs.”
Doherty’s last release was 2022’s acclaimed ‘The Fantasy Life of Poetry & Crime’, released in collaboration with Frédéric Lo.
Last night (Wednesday September 13), Doherty made a surprise appearance on stage with Pregoblin at the Brixton Windmill.
