Drawn from personal tapes shot by Maya and her friends over the last 22 years, filmmaker and close friend Stephen Loveridge captures her remarkable journey from immigrant teenager in London, through her battles with the music industry and the mainstream media, to international popstar fame as M.I.A.

Debut filmmaker Stephen Loveridge—a friend of the Sri Lankan-English singer and activist M.I.A. from their ’90s art school days—works in his home footage to craft a multidimensional portrait of the controversial artist. Grungy, personal, and colorfully high-octane: the form befits the subject.