Soleil Spotlight

Creator of award-winning films like Vaya and Tell Me Sweet Something. His most recent venture was brought on to direct Greek Freak, a live-action film for Disney+ inspired by the true-life story of NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo…Akin Omotoso, one of the most sought-after film directors, writers, and actors in African Cinema is with us.   Akin walked us through his experience emigrating to South Africa at a turning point in the country's history, and the importance of depicting a variety of stories as a filmmaker.  Closing Season 1 of Soleil Spotlight

Vaya is available to stream on Netflix. And follow Akin @akinomotoso to learn more about his work.

Season 2 of Soleil Spotlight will be back in 2021!

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Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Akin Omotoso 
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Joromi (Remix) - Simi 

Venice Film Festival-winning Columbian writer-director, Mariana Saffon. Mariana spoke to us about her non-conventional ways of scripting the highs and lows of being a woman in the film industry, which makes us the inspiration behind creating her Venice award-winning short, Entre Tú y Milagros, and meeting her idol Pedro Almodóvar whilst holding a handful of sandwiches. 

Follow the IG page @entretuymilagros to learn more about Mariana's Venice FF award-winning short.

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Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Mariana Saffon
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Quisiera- Juan Luis Guerra 

We’re in Turkey this week,  with former Turkish surgeon and now film director, producer and screenwriter  Ahmet Boyacioglu is best known for his first feature, Black and White, Ahmet now serves as the  Art Director for the Festival On Wheels and the director for the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, one of the few festivals to hold a physical edition this year.  

Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival just wrapped its 57th edition, learn more about the festival here.

And learn more about the Close Up Initiative - an International Co-Production Training Program for Documentary Filmmakers from the Middle East and North Africa.

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Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Ahmet Boyacioglu
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Here's To You - Enio Morricone feat. Joan Baez

After a short hiatus, we're back!! From being a member of the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK, to now you may know him as Lee Truitt from BET's Being Mary Jane or PC Clark in BBC One's New Tricks. British-Nigerian actor, producer and activist Chiké Okonkwo is with us. Chiké spoke to us about growing up in a Nigerian household in South London, how his move to the US allowed him to tell the stories he truly wanted to tell and why he and Priya share a love of Beyoncé.

 

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Follow us on IG - @soleil.space
Check out our website to follow our work - www.soleilspace.com

Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Chiké Okonkwo
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Bigger - Beyoncé

 CEO and Artistic Director of the festival, dubbed by members of its community as 'the Black Sundance'. LA-born & Philly-resident, Maori Karmael Holmes is a curator, filmmaker, writer and founder of BlackStar Film Festival: an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the African diaspora and of global communities of color, Maori spoke to us about how her creative journey through various touchpoints of visual artistry led her to where she is today, now serving as, among many other things. 

BlackStar Film Festival just wrapped its 9th edition, learn more on the website here! And follow Maori on IG - @maorikarmael

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Follow us on IG - @soleil.space
Check out our website to follow our work - www.soleilspace.com

Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Maori Karmael Holmes 
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Come Back as a Flower - Stevie Wonder

Award-winning Korean American independent producer, director & writer Grace Lee is best known for directing documentaries such as The Grace Lee Project and the Peabody award-winning American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, Grace told us about the moment when she realised her name was the ‘Jane Smith’ of East Asia, her desire to correct the narratives about minorities that are out there, and why meeting Grace Lee Boggs changed her life. 

 
Check out Grace's website to learn more about her work!

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs is free to stream here (US only), and K-Town92 is available to all here. And learn more about A-Doc here.

Don't forget to rate and subscribe!
Follow us on IG - @soleil.space
Check out our website to follow our work - www.soleilspace.com

Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Grace Lee
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Mic Drop (Steve Aoki Remix) - BTS

From most recently consulting on Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods,  Producer and poet  Jenni Trang Le! Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Jenni has always been a storyteller, and after discovering film during university, went on to work on a number of US-based independent projects. In 2009 she made the move to Saigon official. 11 years later and a number of productions later, Jenni is a seasoned veteran of the Vietnamese film industry who spoke to us about why the decision to move was so easy, the challenges of censorship and her role serving as a bridge between Vietnamese and US cinema.  

Follow Jenni on IG -  @jennitrangle and on Facebook

To learn even more about the Vietnamese film industry, check out ACCENTED: Dialogues in Diaspora | Vietnamese Representation On Screen and Behind the Scenes - a panel Jenni participated in along with her colleagues, hosted by Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen.

Watch the music video for N'Sao? by Suboi, producer by Jenni herself!

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Follow us on IG - @soleil.space
Check out our website to follow our work - www.soleilspace.com

Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Jenni Trang Le 
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: N'Sao? - Suboi 

Moses Babatope is Group Executive Director of Film One Entertainment Group (Film One Productions, Film One Distribution and Filmhouse Cinemas),  collectively the biggest film studio, aggregation and cinema exhibition conglomerate in Nigeria. As you'll learn, this is just one of the several hats that Moses wears! After moving to London to study, Moses entered the film world moving up the ranks working at Odeon Cinemas, soon becoming a pioneer for Nollywood cinema in the UK; an experience which he leveraged after moving back home to Nigeria to help him get where he is today. We're so excited for you to learn more about Moses journey, and the story of Nollywood.
 

Check out Film One Entertainment's website to learn more about their titles, and follow them on IG - @filmoneng
Follow Filmhouse Cinemas on IG -  @filmhousecinemas
And follow Moses on IG - @mosesbabatope

Don't forget to rate and subscribe!
Follow us on IG - @soleil.space
Check out our website to follow our work - www.soleilspace.com

Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Moses Babatope 
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Street Credibility - 9ice

This week on Soleil Spotlight, Award-winning writer and director Bhaskar Hazarika shows us his insights this week on Soleil Spotlight.  We're taking you to Assam, India. Bhaskar told us why he moved from working in Bollywood to independent regional films, the rise of Assamese cinema and why he chose to tell the highly unique story of two people who form a connection through their consumption of meat in his latest film Aamis, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2019.

AAMIS is available to watch in certain regions at www.moviesaints.com
Watch Joymati, the first Assamese language film by Jyoti Prasad Agarwala for free on Youtube
Follow Bhaskar on IG - @stranger.in.time and his production company, Metanormal - @metanormalize
Check out Bhaskar's Facebook page -www.facebook.com/bhaskartalkies

Don't forget to rate and subscribe!
Follow us on IG - @soleil.space
Check out our website to follow our work - www.soleilspace.com

Credits -
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Bhaskar Hazarika
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner 
Outro Song: Tumar Morome Mur - Jayanta Hazarika 

Asha Lovelace,  Trinidadian filmmaker, founder and festival director of Africa Film TT Festival - an annual film festival that showcases the best of contemporary and classic films from the African continent. Asha's journey takes us from growing up in a house full of Caribbean creative legends to studying filmmaking with peers from across the globe in Cuba. She made her debut with the short George and the Bicycle Pump (2000). Her upcoming film project is The Dragon adapted from the Caribbean classic (written by her father Earl Lovelace) The Dragon Can't Dance.

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Follow us on IG - @soleil.space
Check out our website - www.soleilspace.com

Follow Asha on IG - @ashalovelace
Find out more about AFTT Festival - www.africafilmtt.com

Credits:
Producer: Soleil Space
Hosts: Micha Cooper-Edwards, Priya Shanmuganathan
Guest: Asha Lovelace 
Editor: Cooper Conley-Currier
Music: Foreigner - fromforeign.co 
Outro Song: Poverty is Hell - Shadow