A film documenting the highs and lows of pop band Blur is set to open in UK cinemas early next year.

Filmed during the band’s rehearsals and 2009 summer tour, No Distance Left To Run will also feature previously unseen archive footage.

The band announced their reunion last December, eight years after the original line-up last played together.

The film, to be released on 19 January, will also include new interviews with the quartet, led by Damon Albarn.

Blur’s appearance on the last night of the Glastonbury festival was named the best headline performance of 2009 at this year’s UK Festival awards.

Country life

Their last studio album, Think Tank, was released in 2003, after the departure of guitarist Graham Coxon.

Since then, Albarn, 41, has been best known for his Gorillaz pop project with cartoonist Jamie Hewlett.

More recently, the pair have collaborated on Monkey: Journey to the West, a Chinese opera.

Coxon, 40, developed his solo career while James, 41, became a writer and now makes cheese on a farm in Oxfordshire.

Drummer Dave Rowntree, 45, has been selected by the Labour Party to be its candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster at the next general election.

BBC.co.uk 30 November 2009