Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
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Sundance 2025: The Perfect Neighbor, Sly Lives
Stagnation (long-term) and change (imminent) hang over this year’s Sundance. In 2027, the festival will relocate to one of three finalist sites—potentially still a Salt Lake City/Park City split, with the balance of power now reversed between the latter and former, through the rumor vine says Cincinnati or Boulder are more likely. (Please, lord, deliver us unto the midwest or thereabouts.) A Variety article headlined “Sundance in Cincinnati? Hollywood Worries Film Festival Won’t Be the Same Without Park City” actually reports nothing of the sort; the voices regretting Sundance’s imminent departure to a less demanding altitude come from two Utah […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 24, 2025 -
“Listening to Them Blew My Mind” | Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Sly Lives
Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why? There are two days that stand out. The first one is located not in this movie, even, but in my last film, Summer of Soul, which featured a performance by Sly and the Family Stone at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. The energy of that performance leapt past that film and stayed with […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 23, 2025 -
Everybody Is a Star: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson on Making His Oscar-Winning Doc, Summer of Soul
This interview with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson about his Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) appeared on the cover of our Summer, 2021 print edition and is being reposted following the film’s winning Best Documentary at last night’s 2022 Academy Awards. — Editor On June 29, 1969, Sly and the Family Stone delivered an electrifying performance at Mount Morris Park in Harlem, New York. Fusing the revolutionary fervor of the Black Freedom movement with the collectivist spirit of West Coast counterculture, the iconic band wowed the audience with rousing renditions of “Everyday People,” “Sing a Simple Song” “You Can Make It […]
by Claudrena Harold on Mar 28, 2022 -
Hits and Misses, Pandemic Edition 2.0: Anthony Kaufman Breaks Down Six Sundance 2020 Films’ Theatrical Releases
According to Box Office Mojo, our contemporary plague ended on June 14, 2021—the last day the label “COVID-19 Pandemic” was included on its daily box office reporting. But don’t tell that to anyone trying to release a film in the second half of 2021, as viral variants spread widely across America, plunging the hopes of many filmmakers and distributors. Welcome to Pandemic: Year 2. The merciless persistence of the coronavirus and its wide-ranging impact on theatrical moviegoing and home viewing habits became more entrenched over the past several months—with indies on the losing end of the stick. Struggling to gain […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jan 18, 2022 -
Transformations in Non-fiction Filmmaking: The SCAD Savannah Film Festival presents the 8th Annual Docs to Watch Roundtable
This year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival – the “largest university-run film festival in the world,” which ran from October 23-30 – was a conveniently hybrid event that also marked my own return to the in-person festival circuit. Admittedly, as someone residing in a blue state with a strict mask mandate in place, traveling to the Deep South was a somewhat disorienting experience. And a stark reminder that the U.S.’s politicization of a global pandemic really is a war within – and specifically within the states themselves. On the one hand, Georgia’s Republican Governor Kemp issued an executive order back in […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 4, 2021
