Thread by @KevinMKruse

I've still got @questlove's SUMMER OF SOUL documentary rattling around in my head after the @sundancefest premiere last night, so a few more thoughts this morning.

It covers the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which featured an amazing array of talent -- Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, etc. etc.

Just the concert footage -- long forgotten in a basement -- would make this worth watching.

But what really elevates it is the direction.

It's stunning that this is @questlove's first time directing, but as he noted in his opening comments last night, he's always been a storyteller. And it shows here.

I've seen about every doc on the civil rights era, but never anything quite like this.

This was one good example of how it takes familiar themes and presents them in a powerful new way.

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1354998727665188866

That kind of subtle storytelling is *hard* to do.

Too often, documentaries shift abruptly to provide the context, practically shouting HERE'S WHAT WAS GOING ON OUTSIDE, but this one blends Harlem, NYC and the larger turmoil of the '60s effortlessly in with the concert itself.

Here's an example.

Late in the doc, Nina Simone introduces a new song to the crowd: "To Be Young, Gifted and Black."

Given what a big moment that was, and how well it connected to the themes of the concert, it would have been tempting -- even expected -- just to let that play.

Instead, the film seamlessly shifts to @CharlayneHG -- whom we've already met as a NYT reporter covering the concert and impacted by it too -- to show how she had experienced life as someone young, gifted and black when she integrated the University of Georgia in 1961.

There's that kind of thorough fluidity, in which the historical context of an issue -- Motown, the Young Lords, whatever -- is provided not as some forced background to set up the concert, but as an illustration of the concert's themes that seems incredibly organic as it happens.

The whole thing is amazing. If you liked WATTSTAX or documentaries like that, you'll be blown away by this.

(And no, sorry, I have no idea when or where it's coming out. But I'll shout about it when I do.)