Sony Pictures Classics Gives NY “Soul Power”

After editing Leon Gast’s Academy Award winning documentary, “When We Were Kings,” Jeff Levy-Hinte (pictured, left, with Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker) became a successful independent film producer of such films as “High Art,” “Mysterious Skin,” “Laurel Canyon,” “Thirteen,” and “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” among others. But, in the back of his mind he always intended to re-visit footage for “When We Were Kings” that had essentially been left on the cutting room floor. A few years ago, he decided to finally make a movie, “Soul Power,” from the more than 125 hours of footage of the Zaire ‘74 concert that was staged to coincide with the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali.

The show, a so-called “Black Woodstock,”  featured performance by an array of American and African musicians, and a few others. It was headlined by James Brown, but also included B.B. King, Bill Withers, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, and more. But, other than a few performance clips in “When We Were Kings,” concert has gone unseen until now.

“I didn’t really ask anybody for permission,” Levy-Hinte admitted, when asked last night how he went about making the movie. Instead, he had to motivate himself to make the movie. “I had to build up the confidence and the nerve,” he said at a Q & A last night in New York City. “It’s completely irrational, you make films because it’s what you have to do.”