Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

synopsis

Woodstock wasn’t the only thing that happened in 1969. Six weeks later, the Harlem Cultural Festival took place in New York’s Mount Morris Park, a massive meetup of Afro-American musicians and their large audiences. The footage reveals the intense performances of Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, The 5th Dimension, The Staple Singers, Sly and the Family Stone, and many others. Yet at the time, the festival was considered “obscure” and “in the minority”. Film musician Ahmira "Questlove" Thompson, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2021, explores why – while XXX the explosively energetic music.

biography

Ahmir Khalib Thompson, best known as Questlove (1971), is an American musician, director, designer, and producer. He co-founded the Philadelphia hip-hop group The Roots, a multiple Grammy Award-winning group that went on to perform as the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Over the course of his prolific career, he has collaborated with a variety of artists from Fiona Apple to Dilated Peoples. Summer of Soul is his feature-length debut.

more about film

director:	Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
producer:	Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent, David Dinerstein
photography:	Shawn Peters
editing:	Joshua L. Pearson
music:	Randall Poster
executive producer:	Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Jen Isaacson, Jon Kamen, Dave Sirulnick, Jody Allen, Ruth Johnston, Rocky Collins, Jannat Gargi, Beth Hubbard, Davis Guggenheim, Laurene Powell Jobs, Jeffrey Lurie, Marie Therese Guirgis, David Barse, Ron Eisenberg, Sheila C. Johnson