Filmwerk :: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (DVD)

During the rise of The Black Power Movement in the 60s and 70s, Swedish Television journalists documented the unfolding cultural revolution for their audience back home, having been granted unprecedented access to prominent leaders such as Angela Davis, the SNCC's Stokely Carmichael, and Black Panthers founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Now, after more than 30 years in storage, this never-before-seen footage spanning nearly a decade of Black Power is finally available. Director Goran Hugo Olsson presents this mixtape, highlighting the key figures and events in the movement, as seen in a light completely different than the narrative of the American media at the time. Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Abiodun Oyewole, John Forte, and Robin Kelley are among the many important voices providing narration and commentary, adding modern perspective to this essential time capsule of African-American history.

In the late '60s, after the assassination of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement in America gave way to a more militant breed of activists who were demanding greater self-determination for the African-American community and the right to defend themselves against a system they felt was stacked against them. A number of journalists for Swedish television were fascinated with the rise of the Black Panther Party and the larger Black Power movement, and on several occasions sent film crews to the United State to interview major figures in the African-American militant community. Filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson has used some of this archival footage as the basis for the documentary THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE: 1967-1975, which includes vintage interviews with Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Louis Farrakhan, and other key figures in the Black Power movement. The newsreels are accompanied by recent interviews with artists, activists, and cultural historians who discuss this volatile period in American history, including Harry Belafonte, Abiodun Oyewole, Melvin Van Peebles, and many others. THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE was an official selection at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

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