Amy Winehouse's mother to make film on daughter before she loses her memory to multiple sclerosis

The BBC documentary will be released on the 10th anniversary of the singer's death in July

Amy Winehouse with her mother Janis in 2008. Shutterstock

Amy Winehouse's mother is losing her memory, and she wants to tell her daughter's story before multiple sclerosis strips her of her memories of the late singer.

Janis Winehouse, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2003, has been working on a documentary with the BBC to mark the 10th anniversary of the singer's death in July.

The film, which currently has the working title Amy Winehouse: 10 Years On, will tell the singer's story primarily through her mum, the BBC said.

“I don't feel the world knew the true Amy, the one I brought up," Janis said. "I'm looking forward to the opportunity to offer an understanding of her roots and a deeper insight into the real Amy.”

Amy died on July 23, 2011 from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27. Her record-breaking 2006 album Back to Black established her as one of the great artists of her generation, and is still the UK's second-best selling album of the 21st Century, right behind Adele's 2011 album 21.

But Amy's success was soon overshadowed by her widely-documented drug and alcohol problems. In 2011, a few months before her death, she performed one of her last concerts in Dubai where she was booed for mumbling through much of her set.

Janis said the new film will “differ from the narrative we have been told before”.

In 2014, Janis wrote about her memory loss, one of the problems associated with MS, in her book Loving Amy: A Mother's Story.

"I worry about the day when Amy stops being alive in my head and in my heart. I don't want that day ever to come," she wrote.

The film will not be the first about the singer. Asif Kapadia's 2015 film Amy won an Oscar for Best Documentary.

Back then, Winehouse’s family released a statement after the documentary's premiere saying they “would like to disassociate themselves from the forthcoming film about their much missed and beloved Amy”.

“They feel that the film is a missed opportunity to celebrate her life and talent and that it is both misleading and contains some basic untruths,” the statement said.

Amy's father, Mitch, who separated from Janis when the singer was nine, criticised Kapadia for painting a “negative, spiteful and misleading” portrayal of his daughter.

“I am not changing my stance just because film won Oscar. It's a negative, spiteful and misleading portrayal of Amy. We will fix this,” he tweeted in 2016.

Amy's death anniversary will also be marked by the release of a three-CD compilation of her performances at the BBC. Other special programmes, including a BBC Radio 2 documentary about her influence on younger female singer-songwriters and a Radio 1 documentary to introduce her to a new generation of listeners, are also being planned.

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