(Photo Twitter@RintuThomas11)
New Delhi, March 28 (PTI): "Writing With Fire", the Indian documentary that chronicled the rise of a newspaper run by Dalit women, lost to "Summer of Soul (Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" in the best documentary feature category at the 94th edition of the Oscars, Hollywood's biggest awards ceremony.
"Summer Of Soul" is directed by the Roots frontman Ahmir Thompson, best known by his stage name Questlove. For the film, Thompson arranged the never-seen-before archival footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity, attended by 300,000 people in the summer of 1969.
The "stunning" win of the movie was about "the marginalised people in Harlem that needed to heal from pain", he said.
"It's not lost on me that the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival should have been something that my beautiful mother and my dad should have taken me to when I was five years old," Thompson added.
Overcome by emotion, the musician said Black cultural institutions and expressions are still ignored in contemporary pop culture. "Just know in 2022, this is not just a 1969 story about marginalised people in Harlem. This is a story of... I'm sorry, I'm just overwhelmed right now," added Thompson.
