By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

SUNDANCE SELECTS TAKES NORTH AMERICAN RIGHTS TO GÖRAN HUGO OLSSON’S THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975

Berlin, GERMANY (February 14, 2011) – Sundance Selects announced today from the 2011 Berlin Film Festival that the company is acquiring North American rights to writer/director Göran Hugo Olsson’s THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975. The documentary, produced by Annika Rogell of Story AB, made its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and screened this week in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival.  The film was co-produced Joslyn Barnes and Danny Glover of Louverture Films, and Sveriges Television.

From 1967 to 1975, fueled by curiosity and naïveté, Swedish journalists traversed the Atlantic Ocean to film the black power movement in America. THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material, which languished in a basement for 30 years, into an irresistible mosaic of images, music, and narration to chronicle the movement’s evolution. Mesmerizing footage of Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Angela Davis, and Eldridge Cleaver, as well as Black Panther activities, are peppered with B-roll footage of black America. These scenes take on a fresh, global angle through the outsider perspective of the Swedish lens. Meanwhile, penetrating commentaries from artists and activists influenced by the struggle—like Harry Belafonte, Sonia Sanchez, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, and Professor Robin D. G. Kelley—riff on the range of radical ideas and strategies for liberation. Their insights and the vibrancy of the unearthed footage render the black power movement startlingly immediate and profoundly relevant.

Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects/IFC Films, said: “This is a remarkable film by Swedish director Göran Hugo Olsson with footage from true outsiders filming outsiders as they fight to make their way into the system. It is riveting and emotional to go back in time to see a major part of our recent history. This is an essential film that we look forward to bringing to a large audience.”

“When I started this project, the goal was to reach out and make these remarkable images available to the audience forever! I could think of no better partner to do this with than Sundance Selects. Being from remote Sweden we were lucky to get to work with the very best film team in the U.S. — Joslyn Barnes and Danny Glover at Louverturefilms, and Corey Smyth at Blacksmith Corp. And now Sundance Selects. I’m just happy. We have important subject matter that comes with a responsibility to handle it with love and respect, and that is what happening now,” said Olsson.

The deal for the film was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Productions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films with Debra Fisher at Cinetic Media on behalf of the filmmakers. Sundance Selects is a sister division to IFC Films and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by Rainbow Media.

*                      *                      *                      *

About SUNDANCE SELECTS:

Established in 2009 and based in New York City, Sundance Selects is a leading U.S. distributor of prestige films that focuses on American independents, documentaries and world cinema.  Its unique distribution model makes independent prestige films available to a national audience by releasing them in theaters as well as on cable’s Video On Demand (VOD) platform, reaching nearly 50 million homes. Some of the company’s successes have included Spike Lee’s Passing Strange: The Movie and Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’ The Shock Doctrine, a feature documentary based on Naomi Klein’s bestselling book of the same name.  Upcoming Sundance Selects releases include Errol Morris’ highly acclaimed documentary Tabloid, Warner Herzog’s 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, famed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy starring Juliette Binoche and the 2011 Sundance crowdpleaser BUCK, directed by Cindy Meehl. Sundance Selects is a sister division to IFC Films and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by Rainbow Media.

# # #

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon