HIFF: Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend

Bob Marley's former girlfriend and filmmaker, Esther Anderson, has put together a film about Bob's life, mainly containing lost footage before he became the Bob Marley that fans all across the globe know and love. While there isn't really much of a storyline, Esther puts together clips where Bob is just laying around, smoking joints, and practicing some of his most favorite songs such as "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff".

It's easy to see what kind of messages Anderson wanted to send to the world, she wanted to share what the world might not have known about Bob Marley, kind of a backstage pass time machine, all in a 90 minute film. We do learn about some of the origins from which some of Bob's songs started, for example, the inspiration for "Get Up, Stand Up" came after Marley visited Haiti and saw the living conditions and lives of the people there. One of my favorite scenes is Bob practicing some vocals for a song while strumming his guitar. As a Bob Marley fan, it was really something else to actually see him in his roots, and totally unaware that he would become one of the most famous global superstars.