I first heard about Gil Reyes’ documentary Searching For Elliott Smith after stumbling upon an early IMDB page that listed the likes of Mary Lou Lord, Gus Van Sant, producer Larry Crane, Heatmiser’s Tony Lash, Smith’s friend Sean Croghan, and many more as “credited cast” members. It was intriguing to see that some of the people closest to Smith had agreed to appear in a film that was presumably about his life, but time went by and the project didn’t appear to be happening.

Perhaps it was the addition of Smith’s former girlfriend (and witness to his mysterious death), Jennifer Chiba, that spurred the project forward, however, as Searching For Elliott Smith made its world premiere at a recent CMJ screening and is slated to screen at Argentina’s Mar del Plata International Film Festival next week.