“The entire film is constructed following the inspiration of Nico’s music: her performances and the lyrics of her songs,” says the director.

Though German singer Nico is immortalized for her work with The Velvet Underground as well as her 70’s solo work, she later led a fascinating, if overlooked, life until her sudden death at 49. Those final years will be the subject of a new biopic from Italian director Susanna Nicchiarelli titled Nico, 1988

“Most people think, as Andy Warhol once said, that after her experience with Velvet Underground and the Factory — and after having had sex with most of the rock stars of those years — Nico simply ‘became a fat junkie’ and disappeared,” Nicchiarelli said in a statement via Variety. “But is this how her life really went?”

The film aims to show, definitively, that the answer is no.

Nico, 1988 focuses on a period that found the singer embarking on a European solo tour with a new manager and her young son Ari while struggling with longtime heroin addiction. It was during this period that Nico eventually kicked her addiction, before dying in a bicycle accident while on vacation with Ari in Ibiza.

The film will heavily feature Nico’s music, which Nicchiarelli says influenced the entire construction of the film and “tell us more than any other dialogue or situation in the film” while her screenplay draw from interviews conducted with Ari and manager Alan Wise. Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, who stars as Nico, will perform music played on the final tour.

Filming will take start in Italy, before later moving into Belgium and Germany.