Bon Jovi documentary to rock Tribeca Film Festival

Singer Jon Bon Jovi speaks during the Service Nation Summit in New York, September 12, 2008.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Tribeca is giving itself a shot to the heart.

The New York festival (April 22-May 3) will screen what is described as a work-in-progress documentary about Jon Bon Jovi. The previously unknown picture, titled "When We Were Beautiful," follows the musician and his band on their 2008 Lost Highway world tour.

The Phil Griffin-directed movie will screen as the festival's centerpiece presentation on April 29, with another pair of screenings scheduled over the following three days.

Described as a celebration of the quarter-century career of the chart-topping act, the film "susses out the secrets behind this legendary band's determined and charismatic leader Jon Bon Jovi" and his band members, the festival said.

Bon Jovi has enjoyed unusual staying power in American pop culture. The band came to prominence in the mid-1980s by creating a type of music that made the more aggressive style of rock at that time palatable to mainstream audiences; it has been resurgent this decade with several top-selling albums.

Jon Bon Jovi has starred in a number of Hollywood features, including "U-571." The New Jersey rocker has a previous association with Tribeca, performing at its opening night two years ago as part of an environmental-themed evening.

(Editing by Dean Goodman at Reuters)