Summer Of Soul

Sundance

’Summer Of Soul’

In another Sundance deal involving a major streamer Searchlight Pictures and Hulu will release Questlove’s festival hit Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) after the studio said on Thursday (February 4) it had acquired worldwide rights.

The winner of the Sundance documentary grand jury prize and audience award will open theatrically and stream exclusively on Hulu in the US, and will debut internationally on Star and Star+.

Searchlight acquired the film with Disney General Entertainment’s BIPOC Creator initiative.

Summer Of Soul takes place at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, when some of the world’s greatest talents from Nina Simone to B.B. King and Sly & The Family Stone performed. The event took place during the same summer as Woodstock.

Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein produced with RadicalMedia serving as creative and production partners.

The film is produced by Mass Distraction Media and RadicalMedia, and is a Vulcan Productions production in association with Concordia Studio, Play/Action Pictures, LarryBilly Productions.

Cinetic handled the sale on behalf of the filmmakers.

The streaming platforms and studios or distributors with close ties to streamers want to bulk up their content portfolios to attract more filmmaking talent, and grow and retain subscribers.

At the start of the festival Apple paid a festival record $25m for CODA, and this week Netflix said it had acquired Passing in a $15m deal.