And you have to show somebody the evidence, and that’s what we did. I think like everybody, you don’t believe it at first, it was such an incredible lineup. When we met with him, he pretty much had the same reaction we had when we first saw the footage.

In an interview, Questlove mentioned that he was also unaware of the festival’s existence. He’s a music nerd on one hand, so he has a great working knowledge. We were both fans of the Roots and we felt like the film needed the right storyteller. And we had Questlove at the top of our list. We just started thinking about who the right director would be for the project. I was working with a producing partner named David Dinerstein, who was a colleague and friend for a number of years, and we started working on it together. Why did you tap Questlove to be the director? From that point on, I started working on it and decided to try to put it together. I went out to New York to meet him, and he started telling me about the footage and I was just kind of blown away by it. I just became fascinated by it, and started doing a little bit of research and ended up tracking down Hal Tulchin, who was the gentleman who originally directed the footage in 1969.

and he told me about this footage he had heard about. Probably about 12 years ago, a friend from college was working on a music project. So I worked for a long time as an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, and I worked for the Walt Disney Company for a while, and Sony Pictures, and I was working for an entertainment production company and distributor called Newmarket Films. How did you become involved in this project? This interview has been edited for content and clarity. The Tampa Bay Times caught up with Fyvolent to ask about his role in the film, ahead of his visit to Tampa Theatre on Friday. Summer of Soul premiered in January at the virtual Sundance Film Festival, where it won two documentary awards: the Audience Award and U.S.

Summer in the country movie