Film Festival 09 - Soul Power
Soul Power
USA 2008, 92m
Director: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
Festivals: Toronto 2008; Berlin, San Francisco 2009
Headlining James Brown, 'Zaire 74', the music festival of soul and
African-diaspora talent that preceded the Ali-Foreman 'Rumble in
the Jungle' has long lived in legend. More than 30 years later we
can finally see and hear why. With access to long abandoned film
and sound recordings producer/director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte has
completed the great concert doc that was always supposed to be.
Brown, in peak form, opens and closes the movie which cherry picks
the three-day event for thrilling performances by Miriam Makeba,
Celia Cruz, B.B. King (and Lucille), The Spinners, Bill Withers and
more. With the benefit of great digitised sound, what further
encouragement do you need to experience it all on the giant screen
via footage that might have been shot yesterday? The backstage
footage is just as epochal with Ali, Don King, and many more Black
Power luminaries fronting up. "Another legendary 1970s-era concert
sees the light of day through the miracle of technology in the
joyously funky Soul Power." - Eddie Cockrell, Variety
In English, French, Spanish and Xhosa, with English subtitles
