Metallica is used to its fans traveling great distances to see its live concerts. But flying halfway around the world to see a movie about the Bay Area heavy metal band is a new phenomenon.
After the documentary “Metallica Saved My Life” made its West Coast premiere on Thursday, Oct. 9, at the 48th Mill Valley Film Festival, a superfan named Camila Guerrero revealed she arrived that morning from her home in Adelaide, Australia, just to see the film. She was to fly back home at 6 a.m. the following morning.
The 22-hour stay in the Bay Area – sandwiched between 31 hours of roundtrip flying time, which she paid on her own – was well worth it, she said. The Chilean-born Guerrero, 32, is one of the subjects in Jonas Åkerlund’s documentary about Metallica’s unique relationship with its most ardent supporters.
A scene from the documentary “Metallica Saved My Life,” about the Bay Area heavy metal band and their fans. (Mill Valley Film Festival)
“It’s been a remarkable year for me in terms of ‘How did this small girl from Chile end up in this Metallica movie, and at fancy film festivals like this one and the one in Tribeca, New York? ‘ It’s like, ‘What are you on about? ‘ It’s pretty crazy stuff,” she told the Chronicle, noting it was the fifth time she’d seen the film. “It’s what dreams are made of.”
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who hosted the screening at the Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley with Åkerlund, even gave Guerrero a shout-out during the post-screening Q&A.
The idea for the film, he told the Chronicle, was to celebrate “the diversity and the depth and the dedication and the passion of Metallica fans,” which he considers a much more interesting approach than simply making a documentary about the band.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich interacts with the audience after a Mill Valley Film Festival screening of “Metallica Saved My Life” at the Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Tommy Lau/Mill Valley Film Festival)
“We kept seeing the same faces in the front rows, and so getting an understanding of their backstories, that was the most eye-opening thing for me,” said Ulrich, who indicated that the film was on the verge of acquiring a distributor and hopes for a theatrical release in the spring.
Ulrich, who called MVFF “the hometown film festival of Metallica,” told the MVFF crowd in introducing the screening that the band – which includes lead vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo – relate to their fans because, at heart, they were fans too. Before becoming rock stars, they were the ones in the crowd – and still are. Just last month, Hetfield was seen at the long-awaited Oasis reunion concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
“That will always be part of who we are,” said Ulrich, who grew up in Denmark. “When I see these guys out in the front row, that was me, and still is me. I actually saw Deep Purple twice in 1973, and saw all these (acts) around Copenhagen: Thin Lizzie, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Slade and Status Quo. I was the guy that somehow ended up outside the Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen next to the main train station waiting for Ritchie Blackmore (of Deep Purple) to try to get his autograph.”
Metallica drummer and co-founder Lars Ulrich poses with a young Metallica fan at the Outdoor Art Club in Mill Valley ahead of a screening of “Metallica Saved My Life” at the Mill Valley Film Festival on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Tommy Lau/Mill Valley Film Festival)
He marveled at Metallica’s staying power, which shows no signs of abating. It sells out stadium concerts around the world, and attracts new, younger fans each generation.
More Information
48th Mill Valley Film Festival: Through Oct. 12. $9-$18.50 single tickets; special events pricing vary. At venues in Mill Valley, San Rafael, Larkspur and Berkeley. For more details and tickets, go to www.mvff.com
“When we started Metallica, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, all those guys, they were still in their 30s,” Ulrich said. “That’s f-ing crazy, right? So the idea that you could play rock and roll in your 60s, much less play rock-and-roll in your 80s like those guys are doing now, or Springsteen, or Neil Young in their 70s, that didn’t exist.”
Ulrich is having quite the year in cinemas. Along with “Metallica Saved My Life,” which premiered in June at the Tribeca Festival, he also contributed to Ludwig Göransson’s score to Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” – which the Oakland filmmaker said Metallica’s 1988 song “One” served as inspiration – and had an amusing cameo in “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”
Mill Valley Film Festival Director and founder Mark Fishkin, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and filmmaker Jonas Åkerlund listen to an audience member’s question after a screening of “Metallica Saved My Life” at the Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Tommy Lau/Mill Valley Film Festival)
All this while the band continues to perform.
Its next stop is at Chase Center on Wednesday, Oct. 15, as part of Dreamforce’s Dreamfest, a concert benefiting UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, before continuing its M72 World Tour in Australia next month.
And you can bet Guerrero, who has attended nearly 200 Metallica concerts, will be there – along with other Metallica superfans.
“Lars is so gracious,” she said at the MVFF after party at the nearby Outdoor Art Club. “I’m just another fan, but sometimes when I’m in a room full of people and he calls me by my name, it’s still a bit like, ‘Pinch me.'”
This article originally published at Superfan flies from Australia for ‘Metallica Saved My Life’ at Mill Valley Film Festival.