Baz Luhrmann premiered EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert on Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, unveiling a 100‑minute documentary built from 59 hours of long‑lost negatives of Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas run. The film, which does not yet have a distributor or release date, assembles restored performance and behind‑the‑scenes footage from Presley’s seven‑year residency at the International Hotel that ran from 1969 to 1976.
The material, recovered from a Warner Bros. archive stored in an underground Kansas salt mine, covers what Luhrmann and collaborators describe as a storied stretch of 636 performances. Luhrmann, working with a restoration team that included filmmakers who have handled other archival projects, screened a version pared down from the 59 hours into a concert‑driven documentary that also uses vintage interview audio to provide narration.
The film presents a mix of stage sequences and offstage moments. Concert clips show large‑room spectacle, audience hysteria and up‑close camera work that emphasizes Presley’s stage presence, while rehearsal and backstage footage offers a view into his musical process. Luhrmann incorporates long‑disappeared press‑conference audio in places, allowing Presley’s own voice to frame segments of the film.
Reviewers at the TIFF premiere described the restored pictures as markedly clearer than previously circulated clips from the era, and said the material highlights both showmanship and musicianship. The New York Post review noted improvised banter, visible affection toward fans, and moments with Presley’s family — including footage of Presley and Priscilla Presley with their daughter, Lisa Marie — woven into performances of songs such as “Always On My Mind.” The review added that the film gives a renewed sense of Presley’s status as a major musical figure.
Audience response at the TIFF screening was immediate: attendees rose and danced during portions of the live performance footage, and reviewers reported strong enthusiasm in the theatre. Luhrmann’s 2022 dramatized feature Elvis, starring Austin Butler, is widely credited with reviving interest in Presley’s career; EPiC positions itself as a archival companion piece that foregrounds the material reality of the concerts rather than a cradle‑to‑grave biography.
The restoration work was undertaken after the discovery of the negatives in Warner Bros.’ vault. Existing public clips from Presley’s International Hotel years have often been fragmented or grainy; the documentary’s team said the newly restored material provides a much fuller and clearer window into what those shows were like and into the atmosphere of the venue, now the Westgate Las Vegas Resort.
Luhrmann’s film blends performance and personal moments rather than offering a comprehensive life history. The documentary’s structure alternates live numbers with audio and visual traces of Presley’s offstage life, allowing viewers to see both the spectacle of the concerts and quieter domestic scenes. Those narrative choices, reviewers said, let the footage speak for itself while giving the film a through line.
EPiC’s premiere at TIFF marks the public debut of the restored material; details about wider theatrical or streaming distribution have not been announced. For now, the film’s archival reclamation and the visual clarity of previously unseen footage are the central newslines from the festival screening, offering new primary‑visual documentation of one of rock ’n’ roll’s most scrutinized eras.
