HBO releases teaser trailer for Donna Summer documentary

"Love to Love You, Donna Summer" is scheduled to premiere in late May.

Apr 28, 2023

A Donna Summer documentary is coming to HBO. The network dropped the trailer for “Love to Love You, Donna Summer,” its forthcoming film on the late disco queen.

The two-minute trailer opens with Summer’s voice describing the frenzy that her fans would go through during her concerts, PEOPLE reports. “The audience would get completely uncontrollable,” Summer says. “People would begin to rip their clothes off and throw them on the stage; bras, underwear. I didn’t know it was going to be that racy.”

The documentary will examine Summer’s rise as one of disco’s most famous singers and look into her personal life away from the spotlight. In the trailer, Summer describes how her persona as a musician was different from her more private life.

“I have a secret life. You’re looking at me, but what you see is not what I am,” Summer said. “My approach to singing…I approach as an actress. I don’t approach it as a singer. It’s really acting. I’m not trying to be me.”

The trailer footage shows Summer on stage before thousands of adoring fans, in the studio with collaborators like producer Giorgio Moroder and hobnobbing at haunts like Studio 54.

Summer was famous for a string of dance hits that stretched from the 1970s into the 1980s, including “Love to Love You, Baby,” “I Feel Love,” “Last Dance,” “Bad Girls” and “She Works Hard for the Money.”

The trailer also shows Summer spending time with her family, including daughter Brooklyn Sudano, who directed the documentary with Roger Ross Williams, according to PEOPLE. The film will explore Summer’s efforts to hide her personal life from the public.