USC will feature a powerful conversation, Wednesday inspired by the revolutionary PBS series “SOUL!” and its recent documentary “Mr. SOUL!”
“‘Mr. SOUL!’ Is a love letter to Black culture, Black joy, Black love and Black lives,” said Melissa Haizlip, the Emmy nominated and Peabody Award winning producer, writer and director of “Mr. SOUL!””When people watch the documentary, I hope they come away feeling inspired, as if they’ve gotten to meet an unsung hero named Ellis Haizlip, and discovered a hidden gem called ‘SOUL!’” Melissa Haizlip is also the niece of the renowned Ellis Haizlip.
Ellis Haizlip was the producer and host of the 1968 television show “SOUL!” Haizlip is remembered today as the cultivator of a pioneering platform made to showcase Black voices and Black culture during the civil rights movement. Haizlip leaves behind a powerful legacy, which is beautifully illustrated in the award-winning documentary “Mr. SOUL!”
The “Producing to Power” event, hosted by USC Vision & Voices, will be held at Wallis Annenberg Hall in the forum on Wednesday at 7 p.m. An esteemed panel of producers, developers, creators, writers and directors will discuss Haizlip and the power of media to enact social change. Panelists include Melissa Haizlip, Mara Brock Akil, Tendo Nagenda and Stephanie Tarvares-Rance. USC Annenberg Professor Miki Turner will moderate the event.
“I see this documentary as a cultural corrective,” Haizlip said. “There’s this sense that unarchiving our own history and reframing the narrative around Black Excellence is essential to centering the Black experience. Black excellence is not just a hashtag. Black excellence has always been there. In this time of racial reckoning, CRT and reparations, we need to remember that we are not defined by our trauma. We need to center Black joy, and remind ourselves of our greatness.”
Panelist Tendo Nagenda says that he hopes documentary viewers take away “how lucky we were and are to have had Ellis Haizlip and the show’s curation, courage, audacity and platform.” Nagenda is an accomplished producer and developer of several high-profile films. Nagenda recently developed Netflix’s critical success “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”
“[Ellis Hazlip] showed the world – through filmed entertainment – that the Black experience is as important as any other and the art and culture that emanates out of that is as vital, rich and undeniable as anything humankind has ever known,” Nagenda said.
Nagenda looks forward to the opportunity the Vision & Voices event presents for “connecting our current and future storytellers and artists with the experience and (Black) history that has preceded them, but that can and will also propel them…if they embrace it.”
“I’m beyond grateful to have the opportunity to explore ‘Producing to Power,’ and strategies to survive in this business,” Melissa Hazlip said. “Ellis Haizlip figured it out during his time on ‘SOUL!,’ which inspired me to keep striving to make ‘Mr. SOUL!’ Now it’s time to inspire the next generation on the come up. We have so many tools out here now. We just have to recognize what they are.”