“We knew there was a treasure trove somewhere where a filmmaker had filmed all the concerts of the Harlem Cultural Festival,” he continues. I remember when we were making and seeing footage of that legendary concert and her incredible performance - I asked my team, ‘Where’s the rest of the footage of that concert?’” “The irony of that story is that there’s a little three-minute clip that showed Nina performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. “This particular film is serendipitous because when we made ‘What Happened, Miss Simone,’ we were also the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival,” Kamen says. The film’s debut also marks a sweet return to the Sundance Film Festival for executive producers Jon Kamen and Dave Sirulnick after premiering “What Happened, Miss Simone” at the fest in 2014. So many people have had their careers based in the legend of what is Woodstock and I was like, ‘Well, this was weeks before Woodstock.” “It’s the standard for which all things are judged - Jimi Hendrix’s legend, Sly and the Family Stone’s legend, Joni Mitchell. And what was weird to me was that Woodstock has been held as the standard of the ’60s generation, he continues. “This was during the same time period as Woodstock. The other reason Thompson said he had to sign on to the project, was that the sheer existence of this footage made him question “Is it this easy to almost erase Black history?” It was like Mission Impossible, and I had to deal with it. “I’m the only person in history that was given a winning lottery ticket, and was like, ‘Give it to them give it to them.’ But told me that this was my destiny and I had to accept this mission. I was like, ‘You need someone real like an Ava DuVernay or Spike Lee to take this because this is too much important in history for you to rely on a novice,” he recalls. Why are you trusting a first-time driver behind the wheel?” “And then it went from that to, ‘Wait a minute, why am I chosen one to tell this story?’ This is more than just entertainment this is history. Because my ego wouldn’t even let me fathom that you know the all-knowing music snob Questlove didn’t know about something as mammoth as this festival happening,” he laughs. “When it was presented to me, one I didn’t believe it in the beginning. When he was first offered the gig in 2018, Thompson says he had to overcome some major imposter syndrome. But that didn’t mean he felt ready for it. Known for his near-encyclopedic musical knowledge, Thompson was chosen by producers to bring this bit of buried history into the light. The film follows the Harlem Cultural Festival and features rare, unseen footage featuring Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and B.B King from the six-week concert series at Harlem’s Mount Morris Park in 1969. It’s a personal touch because the documentary, which will open the festival on Thursday night, is a personal one.
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