Glen Campbell Alzheimer’s film wins grand prize in Nashville

A new film documenting Glen Campbell’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease has won the grand jury prize after premiering recently at the Nashville Film Festival.

“Glen Campbell … I’ll Be Me,” directed by actor-filmmaker James Keach, was singled out “as an intimate and honest portrayal of a music legend’s battle with Alzheimer’s [that] captures a family’s commitment to love and laugh through the adversity of a debilitating disease.”

Keach is said to be working on a deal for national distribution of his film to bring it to audiences beyond the film-festival circuit.

Campbell and his wife, Kim, revealed in 2011 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in hopes of raising more awareness about the degenerative disease and also to let fans know what he was going through.

The singer and his wife said he wanted to continue performing as long as possible and did not want the public to speculate about what was wrong in situations where he sometimes forgot song lyrics or repeated himself in between-song remarks.

He launched a Goodbye Tour at Club Nokia in Los Angeles at the end of 2011 and continued touring, with several of his children in his band for musical and emotional support, until the final show in November 2012 in Napa, Calif. He sang his 1977 hit “Rhinestone Cowboy” in February 2012 as part of the Grammy Awards telecast.

Campbell’s family reportedly moved him recently into an Alzheimer’s care facility.