Mr. Soul! Nominated for Outstanding Debut Feature at Cinema Eye Honors

Melissa Haizlip's award-winning documentary, "Mr. Soul!", has now been nominated for Outstanding Debut Feature at the Cinema Eye Honors. According to the awards group, which has been annual honoring nonfiction work since 2007, over 65% of its nominees this year are first-timers. "Women filmmakers and craftspersons made up 44% of today’s announcements, a record for Cinema Eye, and female directors scored more nominations overall than their male counterparts across all categories for the first time," revealed Cinema Eye in an official statement. The awards ceremony will be held virtually on March 9th, 2021.

The film chronicles the legacy of "SOUL!", the public television variety show produced and hosted by Ellis Haizlip (the director's uncle) that turned a spotlight on the Black Arts Movement. Enhancing the picture are music composed by Grammy-winner Robert Glasper as well as narration from Blair Underwood, who also serves as one of the film’s executive producers. In his four-star review of the film published on this site, our critic Glenn Kenny wrote that "the clips from the show—and seriously, can someone assemble the entire series and get it on streaming, or physical media somehow—reveal it as a phantasmagoria of Black excellence."

Representatives of the Black Arts Movement who appeared on the show were timeless talents the likes of Sidney Poitier, The Last Poets, Gladys Knight, Alvin Ailey Dance Troupe, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Al Green, Muhammad Ali, Cicely Tyson, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, Ashford and Simpson, Roberta Flack, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, Billy Preston, Black Ivory, The Delfonics, Bill Withers, Nikki Giovanni, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sonia Sanchez, Wilson Pickett, Odetta, Merry Clayton, Mandrill, Kool and the Gang, Toni Morrison, Kathleen Cleaver, Betty Shabazz, Stokely Carmichael, Mrs. George Jackson, George Faison and Patti Labelle. During a time period when African-Americans were not routinely featured prominently on television except in negative stereotypes, this program blazed new trails for representation during its run from 1968 through 1973.

The film's distributors Shoes In The Bed Productions and Open Your Eyes & Think MF are proud to announce the continuing virtual cinema release in over 30+ cinemas celebrating its fourth month in release (for a full list of showtimes, click here). This September also marked the 52nd anniversary of the premiere episode of SOUL! on September 12, 1968. From that day forward, Ellis Haizlip and his inclusive crew of Black and mostly women producers, directors, crew and guest artists made history every week. And now, through this film, Ellis still continues to inspire and instill pride into new generations of fans. As he states in the film, "Black seeds keep on growing," the time is now, and is most important.