The Reel to Reel programme opened the festival with a party: Soul Power. This film brings us back to Zaire 74 and a music festival that brought some of the greatest African American musicians of the time alongside some of Africa's best known artists. The audience tonight, who happened to be the first group to see the film, just loved the film. We clapped throughout the musical intervals and I'm sure if there had been more space, a few people would have got up to dance. Music from the likes of the Godfather of Soul - Mr.James Brown - B.B. King, the Spinners, Miriam Makeba, Afrisa, Fania All-Stars lit up the screen. There was also a special appearance by Muhammad Ali, with some really great commentary by the way. During the Q&A, director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte (pictured right with programmer Thom Powers) spoke about how much he wanted to put this film together. He said, "the director, editor and musicians handed us this enormous gift." Levy-Hinte went on to mention that the project took two and a half years to complete. His editor, David Smith, was also in attendance. Smith talked about having to go through a lot of footage and decide what would make an impact for the film. Unfortunately, some great footage was not used; or else this film would have been longer than 90 minutes. Someone in the audience actually asked about a possible CD Box Set of the music from Zaire 74; Levy-Hinte told us that his wish is to have a distributor release the film as well as a DVD with extras and maybe even a CD. A website for the film is also in the works.
If you want to join the party and enjoy the great music, you have a chance to see this film not one but two more times. You can see it Sat., Sept 6th at 9pm and again on Sat., Sept 13th at 10am... and let us know what you think. (For more about Soul Power, read the Doc Blog entries by director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte on the Making of Soul Power Part 1 and Part 2] |