Embankment Films Sets Greta Garbo Feature Doc

Embankment Films has begun production on Garbo: Leave Me Alone, a feature documentary chronicling the life of Hollywood actor Greta Garbo.

Slated for a theatrical release in winter 2024, the film centers on Garbo, who was one of the most famous women in the world for 15 years. At age 35, after four Academy Award nominations and a best actress win at the New York Film Critics Circle, she suddenly retired and never acted again.

Until the end of her life, Garbo declined all opportunities to return to the screen, shunned all publicity and even refused to collect an Academy Honorary Award at the age of 50.

Embankment Films will delve into one of the most mysterious, complex, fearless and melancholic Hollywood icons.

Garbo: Leave Me Alone is being co-produced with Mylla Films and comes from director Lorna Tucker (Westwood: Punk, Icon Activist, Amá, Call Me Kate). Fremantle is handling worldwide sales for the film, which will air on Sky Arts in the U.K. next year after its theatrical release.

“There’s so much I want to know about this incredible woman,” Tucker said. “Why did she walk away? Did she find answers to the questions she was searching for? What did ‘being alone’ mean to her? Did she find something that resembled peace? I want to show the moment she realized she had to walk away from it all, or rather, from Hollywood and the beast it was.”

“Garbo’s life story was surprising and unusual, and it’s these qualities, set against our current celebrity-obsessed culture, that makes this feature documentary such an urgent, timely, resonant and compelling portrait of beauty and fame,” said Nick Taussig of Embankment Films, who is producing alongside Sophie Harmer, head of production for unscripted.

“Greta Garbo is, of course, an iconic star enveloped in myth and mystery,” noted Phil Edgar-Jones, director at Sky Arts. “With this new, definitive film that unpacks her life, we aim to get beyond the myth and closer to the real woman she was.”

Hugo Grumbar of Embankment Films added, “Embankment Films has delivered a number of best-in-class biographical feature documentaries to market, including Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts, Call Me Kate, Audrey and McQueen, and we are now excited to be applying the same rigor and expertise to the great Greta Garbo.”