There’s something about Heath Ledger that the public can’t get enough of, which is why the new documentary about his life is proving of such interest.

We covered the trailer a few week’s back HERE, and yesterday saw the film premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Once the credits had rolled Heath’s sisters, Kate Ledger and Ashleigh Bell, went on stage to talk about their family’s loss.

The Daily Beast reports:

“For us, it was a lot about showing the world what they didn’t know about him,” Bell said, in a panel interview with the film’s directors. “Obviously he was such a prominent actor and everyone knew that side of him already…But we knew the photographer, the father. He was such a filmmaker. He was such a creator of everything. It was really important to us to be able to show…”

“…more than just the celebrity,” Kate Ledger [below left], sitting to Bell’s left, jumped in. “Because he was really not a celebrity. In his eyes, he really wasn’t. We wanted that to come through.”

She pointed out that this isn’t the first time her brother’s life has been given this kind of treatment. “There’s been some pretty average stuff, other documentaries and stuff that I’d never seen, because I never would,” she says. “I think we always knew we wanted to do something, but we wanted to make sure it was done right.”

Of course that wasn’t really the thread that grabbed everyone’s attention, because that was when the topic of Heath’s Joker character came up:

Ledger’s sisters as well as his longtime friend Matt Amato, a filmmaker who co-founded the production company The Masses with Ledger, brought up another reason they were keen to participate in this documentary: to clear up rumors and misconceptions about Ledger’s state of mind after filming The Dark Knight and playing the Joker.

“I hope it’s an antidote to a lot of the gossip that exists in the world,” Amato said on the Tribeca panel. “There are some really terrible things about Heath out there.”

Bell added that, “I don’t know if it was the case that we wanted to clear it up, but as soon as he had the movie everything that came into light about The Joker, we were all so confused.”

“I was really shocked, because that was him having fun,” Kate Ledger said.

“It was coming out that he was depressed and it was taking a toll, and we were going, ‘What?’” Bell said.

“Honestly it was the absolute opposite. He had an amazing sense of humor, and I guess only his close family and friends really knew that. But he was having fun. He wasn’t depressed about The Joker,” Ledger added.

Rumours of Heath’s unravelling during the filming of The Dark Knight definitely helped boost the movie’s box office take, and might have helped him take home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor back in 2009.

This doccie should be quite the watch.

[source:dailybeast]