The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)
Director: Göran Olsson Run Time: 100 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2011
Starring: Abiodun Oyewole, Angela Davis, Harry Belafonte, Stokely Carmichael, Talib Kweli
Country: Sweden, United States
Language: English, Swedish
About the film:
Official Selection of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Film Editing Award.
Mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the United States drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement—Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them—the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. Thirty years later, this lush collection was found languishing in the basement of Swedish Television.
“a time capsule of a turbulent era, essential viewing for anyone concerned with our nation’s history—and its present”
—David Fear for Time Out, New York
Director Göran Olsson and co-producer Danny Glover bring this footage to light in a mosaic of images, music and narration chronicling the evolution one of our nation’s most indelible turning points, the Black Power movement. Music by Questlove and Om’Mas Keith, and commentary from prominent African American artists and activists who were influenced by the struggle — including Erykah Badu, Harry Belafonte, Talib Kweli, and Melvin Van Peebles — give the historical footage a fresh, contemporary resonance and makes the film an exhilarating, unprecedented account of an American revolution.
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About the filmmaker:
Göran Olsson is a Swedish film director, screenwriter, cinematographer and producer. He studied film at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. He is one of Sweden’s leading international documentary filmmakers, innovator of the Super-16 A-Cam, and he was editor and co-founder of the documentary SVT television program ”Ikon”. His films include The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011) about the African American civil rights movement and Concerning Violence (2014), a retrospective view of Africa’s independence movements. Both films were selected to compete at the Sundance Film Festival, with the former winning an award for editing. His other films include Fonko (2016) and That Summer (2018).
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