By Noma Faingold

Most people have never seen Janis Joplin live. Those who have could feel her lifeforce, her pain, her palpable need to be loved, her raw bluesy delivery and her desire to be unforgettable.

She died of a heroin overdose in 1970, becoming a member of the rock and roll 27 Club, along with her contemporaries Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. 

Maybe the next best thing in experiencing the essence of Joplin and learning about all aspects of her life is by watching the 2015 documentary, “Janis: Little Girl Blue,” directed by Amy Berg. It is being shown during the 10^th Anniversary of SFFILM’s Doc Stories (Oct. 17-20). The free community screening will be at 4 p.m. on Oct. 17, with Berg as a special guest. 

The documentary, which had its U.S. premiere at Doc Stories in 2015, features the pivotal period in Joplin’s life and career when she moved from the less-than-accepting surroundings of Port Arthur, Texas, to the counter-culture scene of San Francisco in the early 1960s.

“San Francisco was her stomping ground. It was her freedom,” Berg said. “It was her whole jam, her creativity, her boyfriends and her fashion.”

Berg, an award-winning documentary filmmaker (who also directed the 2014 narrative psychological thriller, “Every Secret Thing” with Dakota Fanning and Diane Lane), is known to tackle subjects that expose predators and injustice, such as in the 2006 Oscar-nominated, “Deliver Us from Evil,” which focuses on sexual abuse and its coverup in the Catholic Church. 

She has said her work tends to look out for the underdog. Other credits include 2015’s “Prophet’s Prey,” about polygamist Warren Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and “Phoenix Rising” (2022 HBO MAX docuseries), which followed actress and activist Evan Rachel Wood’s experience as a survivor of domestic abuse at the hands of Marilyn Mason (birth name: Brian Hugh Warner), who has been accused of sexual abuse by more than 16 women.

 “An Open Secret” (2014), about the exploitation and sexual abuse of children and teens in the film industry, never had a proper release, perhaps because some powerful people in Hollywood squashed it.

“The film was ahead of its time,” Berg said. “I guess Hollywood wasn’t ready.”

She noted that the recent docuseries, “All Quiet on Set,” did play to a large audience.

“Things are moving in the right direction. That series revolved around the same predators that we investigated 10 years ago,” Berg said.

Berg, a former TV journalist, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, spent seven years working on “Janis: Little Girl Blue.” The Joplin family chose her to tell the story. 

The doc covers Joplin’s early years being bullied in high school and college, before finding her voice and her people in San Francisco, particularly within the thriving music scene. There’s plenty of mesmerizing concert footage, including her breakthrough performance of “Ball and Chain” at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Intimate moments – sometime joyful, sometimes crushing – are also captured.

“Janis didn’t have any living mentors. She tried to figure out how to be a woman with no one to look up to,” Berg said. “She was a ground breaker in that way. She was definitely alone. She didn’t have someone to home with. She had a willingness to bear it all. She was just so real. She didn’t recognize how beautiful she was.”

SFFILM’s Executive Director Anne Lai wanted to bring “Janis: Little Girl Blue” back to Doc Stories as a sort of gift to the Bay Area. It also fits with a loose theme of this year’s event of looking back at the 1960s and 1970s.

“We have films examining those eras, when there was a really big shift in the world,” Lai said. “A few films are looking at that particular time through an American cultural lens. As we approach an important election, it feels like the right moment to look at history and how it resonates where we are now.”

Among the documentaries having relevance today include, “One to One: John & Yoko,” directed by Kevin Macdonald, “The White House Effect,” directed by local filmmakers Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk and “Suburban Fury,” a profile of Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford in San Francisco’s Union Square in 1975. The film, directed by Robinson Devor, is told from Moore’s point of view.

Lai is looking forward to seeing “Janis: Little Girl Blue” with a theater audience.

“San Franciscans are very proud of being at the center of the storm of counter culture. It reminds us where we all live,” she said. “They embrace Janis as one of their own.” 

Berg, who splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, will be releasing another music documentary next year about Jeff Buckley, described as being told through his own words, journals and songs. She is also a producer (through her Disarming Films production company) on a feature drama in post-production called, “The Wilderness,” about troubled teens at a wilderness therapy program, directed by Spencer King.

Meanwhile, after years of failed attempts, it looks like there will finally be a biopic on Janis Joplin. Shailene Woodley is set to star and produce. Such artists as Pink, Melissa Ethridge, Amy Adams, Brittany Murphy, Michelle Williams, Lili Taylor, Renee Zellweger and Zooey Deschanel were all attached to projects at one time.

“I’ve been offered to consult on different projects over the years. I never knew which ones were real,” Berg said. “Shailene is great casting. But I’ll will believe it when I see it.”

SFFILM’s 10^th Annual Doc Stories will hold a free community screening of “Janis: Little Girl Blue,” Oct. 17, 4 p.m., at the Vogue Theatre. RSVP at www.sffilm.org.