Soleil Spotlight

Riding the high of the success of British cult classic Kidulthood, the highly popular Netflix show Sense 8, to landing the role of D in Yardie after bumping into Idris Elba in an airport, to playing the fallible character of Simon in HBO's I May Destroy You. The actor and director Aml Ameen is in the house people!!! He needs no introduction but we'll give him one anyway, not only does he speaks to everything we champion at Soleil in his passion and ethos, but also lite...

Bantú Mama is making waves on the festival circuit having just closed this year's Third Horizon Film Festival. All the way from the Dominican Republic we have filmmaker Ivan Herrera. Ivan spoke to us about the moment he realized he wanted to be a filmmaker, his transition from commercial to independent projects, and unpacked why Bantú Mama is an ode to transculturalism. Follow Ivan on IG @ivanherrera and Bantú Mama @bantumama.film Don't forget to rate and subscribe!Follow us on IG - @soleil.s...

Founder of the Caribbean Film Academy and Director of Third Horizon Film Festival ( one of the best festivals in the world) we have Romola Lucas with us. From marine biologist and geologist to now lawyer, and film producer. Romola's story of perseverance proves to us that you really can do it all! Starting with her childhood in Guyana with its white sand and brown water and moving through. And she also introduced us to our new favorite drink - swank! Third Horizon...

Emmy-nominated director, cinematographer and founder of Capital K Pictures, Sofian Khan joins us with a truly beautiful and inspiring conversation. Sofian spoke to us about his desire to create multilayered diaspora stories of art imitating life, the incredible story of Afghan and Iraqi translators captured in his lauded documentary The Interpreters, and perhaps the most eclectic mix of Soleil Speaks we've had to date featuring both Lancashire and Pakistani slang! Follow Sofian on ...

From creating concert visuals for Beyonce and Jay-Z, to being mentored by the legendary Director X, to having Will & Jada Smith as Executive producers, we have Jamaican filmmaker and visual artist, Storm Saulter. Storm takes us on his creative journey way back from picking up his first disposable camera as a kid in Negril, Jamaica, to making his award-winning feature films Better Mus’ Come and Sprinter. Storm is a true creative force who also seeks to embed the complex social and cultural...

Academy Award, BAFTA and Independent Spirit Award-winning producer, writer, director and truly gifted storyteller. The first-ever South Asian to win an Oscar in the category of documentary feature! What an incredible year it has been for Joseph Patel, as you'll learn from this episode. From changing his name Moneesh to a more 'white sounding' one at a young age, to hanging out in Questlove's apartment in Philly at 4am, to his most recent project on serving as a producer on the Sundance ...

The name behind critically acclaimed film titles like Paan Singh Tomar and Neerja ( both produced by two major production companies Foxstar Studios & UTV Motion Pictures) This week from the land of Bollywood, we have with us Rucha Pathak, a multi-faceted Indian film and TV producer commemorating an eventful Women's History Month. In this episode, we're in Mumbai, India ( which produces the largest number of movies in the whole world) for a conversation with Rucha who walked u...

With 6 Oscar wins and 32 Oscar-nominated films, The true definition of a powerhouse boss lady is Brenda Gilbert. Behind various notable film titles like The Joker, Judas & The Black Messiah,& Queen & Slim. We have her with us straight from Vancouver conversing with us about her early aspirations to become an actress, but (didn't quite like being in the limelight) to pivoting to start an entertainment company; BRON Studios. Her Fiji roots but being a chamele...

Peabody, IDA, & PGA-nominated producer Toni Kamau is setting the records as the youngest female documentary producer to be invited to the Academy. Toni taught us about Sheng ( a slang language originating from the mix of Swahili and English),. In her latest film Softie, Toni humanizes and captures Boniface Mwangi the infamous political activist from Kenya in a point of view no one has ever seen before, her process of unlearning and unpacking the effects of the western gaze in storyt...

We are back! And what better way to give you a taste of what is to come in Season 2, than to give you an insight into the mind behind Soleil - your Soleil Spotlight co-host, Micha Cooper-Edwards. In this episode, we turn the spotlight on ourselves as Micha takes us through her journey from Trinidad to the US, her wide-spanning career at Nike, her career switch into the media industry exploring Nigerian film in London, and finally the reason she brought Soleil into the world. Follow Micha @mic...