‘The Princess’ Trailer: Princess Diana Media Scrutiny on Display in ‘Visceral’ Documentary (VIDEO)

The Princess documentary poster featuring Princess Diana
HBO

“When you put a modern person in an ancient institution, they will be destroyed.” A new Princess Diana documentary is coming to HBO and HBO Max this August, and The Princess trailer, below, shows how the British media went from loving Diana to endlessly criticizing her.

HBO describes The Princess as “an intimate and immersive look” at the late royal’s life. It will debut on the 25th anniversary of Diana’s death on Saturday, August 13.

“The relationship of Diana and Charles, the Prince and Princess of Wales, was tabloid fodder for nearly two decades, the subject of almost daily headlines in the 24-hour news cycle,” the synopsis reads. “The Princess draws solely from contemporaneous archival audio and video footage to take audiences back to key events in Diana’s life as they happened, including their seemingly fairy-tale public courtship and wedding, the birth of their two sons, their bitter divorce, and Diana’s tragic and untimely death on August 31, 1997.”

The Princess documentary poster featuring Princess Diana

HBO

“Intensely emotional, The Princess is a visceral submersion into Diana’s life in the constant and often intrusive glare of the media spotlight,” it continues. “The film unfolds as if it were in the present, allowing viewers to experience the overwhelming adoration, but also intense scrutiny of Diana’s every move and the constant judgement of her character. Through archival material, the film is also a reflection of society at the time, revealing the public’s own preoccupations, fears, aspirations, and desires.

Princess Diana’s tragic death, after the car in which she was traveling was pursued by paparazzi, was a moment for reflection by both the public and the media machine it feeds. However, after nearly 25 years since Princess Diana’s death, has anything really changed?”

Get a glimpse into The Princess in the trailer, below.

The footage in the trailer may look familiar, as much of it was recently recreated for The Crown Season 4 on Netflix. In the fictional series, Diana was played by Emma Corrin opposite Josh O’Connor‘s Prince Charles.

The Princess documentary had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. It will be available for streaming on HBO Max at the same time it premieres on HBO (8/7c).

The Princess is directed by Academy Award nominee Ed Perkins (Black Sheep, Tell Me Who I Am) and produced by Lightbox, Academy Award-winning Simon Chinn (Man on Wire, Searching for Sugar Man, LA92) and Emmy-winning Jonathan Chinn (LA92, HBO’s Tina and Yusuf Hawkins: Storm over Brooklyn).

The Princess, Original Documentary, Premieres Saturday, August 13, 8/7c, HBO and HBO Max