Summer of Soul is set to simultaneously premiere in theaters and via Hulu on July 2nd.
Weeks out from finally hitting the big screen, an official trailer for the highly anticipated Summer of Soul documentary has arrived.
Extending the teaser’s criminally brief runtime, the new Summer of Soul trailer showcases even more archival footage from Questlove‘s directorial debut along with some of the film’s testimonials. “Something very important was happening. It wasn’t just about the music,” says soul legend Gladys Knight as a glimpse from her electric performance rolls. Nina Simone, Sly Stone, B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, and a number of Knight’s trailblazing contemporaries can also be seen in the exhilarating two-minute trailer of a film that will offer the best (and for many, the first ) look yet at the fabled 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival.
Cut from more than 45 hours of found footage (literally left lying in a damp basement) documenting the six-week-long event series, Summer of Soul (…Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised,) may have been intended for a small circle of Questlove’s fellow music history obsessives. But after taking home top prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and sparking a bidding war that led to the highest sale of a documentary in the festival’s history, it became clear the director’s audience was far broader than the initial estimate. “I thought this was going to be a quiet little arthouse film,” Questlove said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. “I’m on a group chat with Just Blaze and DJ Premier and Swiss Beatz and J. Cole. 25 of my luminaries. So it was like, ‘If Jazzy Jeff and Peanut Butter Wolf think [the movie] is cool, then I’ll feel OK.’ That’s who I thought my shit was for. God had other plans,” the newly-minted director added.
Watch the official trailer for Questlove’s Summer of Soul documentary below. Catch it in theaters and streaming via Hulu on July 2nd.
