Searchlight Pictures and Hulu set Questlove’s Sundance winner ‘Summer of Soul’ for July

Erik Anderson April 5, 2021

Searchlight Pictures and Hulu, together with Disney General Entertainment’s new BIPOC Creator Initiative, announced the release date for Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s debut film Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival. The film will be released in theaters and streaming on Hulu in the U.S. on July 2, 2021.

In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record—created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. For six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). After that summer, the footage was largely unseen for over 50 years – until now. Summer Of Soul shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by B.B. King, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder and more.

Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and produced by Joseph Patel, p.g.a., Robert Fyvolent, p.g.a., and David Dinerstein, p.g.a., with RadicalMedia serving as creative and production partners. Executive producers are 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 Johnson and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. Jonathan Silberberg and Nicole Stott are co-executive producers. The film is a Vulcan Productions Production in Association with Concordia Studio, Play/Action Pictures, LarryBilly Productions, and produced by Mass Distraction Media and RadicalMedia.

Summer of Soul premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. Together with Disney’s new BIPOC Creator Initiative, Searchlight Pictures will release it theatrically, as well as streaming exclusively on Hulu in the U.S. on July 2. The film will also stream internationally on Star at a date to be confirmed.

Courtesy of Sundance Institute

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.