Jimmy Barnes’ ‘Working Class Boy’ heads to cinemas

Jimmy Barnes’ best selling book Working Class Boy is being turned into a documentary and confirmed for a limited run on Australian cinemas.

The documentary, ‘Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Boy’, is the work of Sydney based production house, CJZ, responsible for such projects as ‘The Gruen’ franchise (ABC), ‘Go Back to Where You Came From’ (SBS) and biopics such as House of Bond and House of Hancock.

The director is, Mark Joffe, whose credits appeared in , among others, Jack Irish, House Of Hancock and The Man Who Sued God.

Principal funding came from Screen Australia with the assistance of Create NSW.

It releases nationally in cinemas from Thursday August 23 for a limited release through Universal Pictures.

Barnes says at the start of the doco, “I was born James Dixon Swan. This is the story of how I became Jimmy Barnes.”

The cameras follow Barnes as he returns to his birthplace in the tough slums of Glasgow and then to Elizabeth in South Australia when the family migrated.

The ensuing domestic violence, poverty and alcoholism that would shape his early life and fuel his career is said through Barnes’ honest and self-deprecating manner, as well as via family and friends.

As CJZ states: It’s “an emotional and compelling film of a damaged childhood, a broken family, a search for love and, finally, a genuine redemption.”

It has the ingredients which saw the Barnes book spend 16 weeks at #1 and sell an astounding 250,000 copies – one of the biggest selling autobiographies ever in Australia.

The doco captures Barnes performing solo and with Cold Chisel. and duets with his children Mahalia Barnes and David Campbell, and brother-in-law, Diesel.

There is a new collaboration with Richard Tognetti’s Australian Chamber Orchestra.