Thirteen years ago, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte was a young grunt film editor. He was working on a doc called When We Were Kings, about the legendary 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" between heavyweight boxers George Foreman and Muhammad Ali.

That film would go on to win an Oscar for best documentary.

But as he worked through the footage, the seeds of another movie were planted in his mind. At about the same time, there was a music festival called Zaire '74. This three-day, 12-hour concert would bring together the leading performers from Africa and black America.

Chief among them would be the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. But the line-up also included B.B. King, the Spinners, Miriam Makeba, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, the Crusaders and Orchestre Afrisa -- to name just a few.

All of that footage was sitting and gathering dust in a New Jersey warehouse. So Levy-Hinte went through the film once again, and to me, what he pulled together is magic.

Soul Power is, of course, a signature JB tune. For a taste of him, here's a live medley of JB performing Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved and Soul Power (which starts about four minutes in) in 1971 as part of his Love, Power and Peace tour. And here's some audio from the Zaire show -- the introduction of the GFOS and The Big Payback.

Before I digress much further, soul power blasts off the screen from virtually every frame of this mesmerizing, affectionate tribute to a remarkable event.

The performances are simply amazing. JB is practically in 3D*. People in the screening applauded after B.B. King's searing version of the The Thrill Is Gone.

*JBD - The James Brown Dimension!

Besides their fantastic concert footage, the cinematographers also had great backstage access. For me, one tiny perfect moment occurs when a horn player is walking down a Kinshasa back street and comes across some young boys. Pied Piper-like, he coaxes them into clapping along with his playing.

Merely seeing Ali eating breakfast and horsing around makes for captivating footage, as did a very young Sister Sledge teaching their new African friends how to bump (the era coincided with the birth of disco, after all :) ).

There simply wasn't a wasted frame on the screen.

Levy-Hinte said his job was made easier/harder by the fact that some of the world's top documentary cinematographers of that time -- Albert Maysles, Paul Goldsmith, Kevin Keating and Roderick Young -- did the filming. There was hundreds of hours of film to work with.

One question during the q-and-a afterwards remarked on the excellent sound quality. Levy-Hinte said the concert promoters brought over state-of-the-art equipment to record the concert.

So all the raw material was there for a great film. And Levy-Hinte and his team hit it out of the park in pulling it all together into a concise, compelling package.

Levy-Hinte is already daydreaming about a DVD package and developing a killer package of extras.

You know what? I'm daydreaming about it too.

Addendum

Levit-Hinte talks about making the film in these Aug. 8 and Aug. 11 TIFF Docs blog posts.