An Argument for Global Perspectives 

The stories we have access to shape how we see ourselves, and the world. No one is more familiar with this truth than Micha Cooper-Edwards, founder and CEO of Soleil Entertainment. Soleil focuses on producing transcultural content for a transcultural audience. They are rejecting the notion of multiculturalism as it exists today, and embracing the nuance, intersectionality and global nature of ethnic and cultural diversity. Micha reminds us of the consequences of such limited exposure to and investment in storytelling in the West: “There’s so much we’re missing. We’re starving ourselves of a much more inspired perspective.” We talked with Micha about redefining the relationship between content and community, storytelling as activism, and challenging the film industry’s practices and investments. 

*Lightly edited for length and clarity.

THE INSPIRATION FOR SOLEIL

I always chuckle when I get this question, because I feel like my entire life has inspired Soleil. I grew up in Trinidad & Tobago with a rich tapestry of religion and culture –– a place where we celebrate each other's culture. All the indigenous cultures are woven into our identities as Trinidadians. It’s something I really took for granted until I moved to the U.S. for college, then France, the U.K., and all over the world. I realized that what was inherent in my upbringing and environment didn’t really exist outside of Trinidad. There may be a handful of places you can point to, but even then they’re often very segregated.

I grew up in the Caribbean mostly fed images from North America, Europe and Australia, stories that were mostly white and not seeing our own stories being told in any sort of elevated way. I didn’t realize that until I became an immigrant in the U.S. I wanted to expose people to cultures inherent in my own upbringing. So Soleil is like a life-long argument. I’ve always been making the argument that the whole world is important and the developing world is important and has a lot to teach to what is considered mainstream. And that applies nowhere better than film and television which has been dominated by only a few perspectives.

TRANSCULTURAL V. MULTICULTURAL, EXPLAINED

We chose the world transcultural and that concept as a rejection of multiculturalism as it has been framed. Our focus on the Global South –– and the diasporas of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Middle East –– these are places of ancestry for minorities in the West as well. So the focus is two-fold 1) to make the global media landscape more representative, equitable, and build stronger bonds across the diasporas and broader world; and 2) satisfy the yearnings of that core community, building a much more authentic and nuanced concept of community.

Multiculturalism is basically an industry buzz term that lumps everyone together who is not white, western, male, and straight. Multiculturalism really essentializes us and doesn’t take into account intersectionality. It’s fake diversity for companies to check off boxes. We need to expand and encompass our notion of more than one culture. The reality of the world now is that we are all a hodgepodge of many cultural influences. The media industry is really way behind because the powers that be want to put us into these boxes. Our content is meant to transcend culture and transcend the boundaries between micro identities. We think it’s more reflective of the world.

On a creative level, we use universal vehicles and fuse them with specific cultural ideas. Sports and music are often easy entry points for audiences and through them, people might experience a very different cultural story they might not have been exposed to otherwise.

THE POWER OF STORYTELLING AS ACTIVISM

Media forms your perception of the world. In order to achieve social change on a meta level, you have to shift fundamental perceptions –– that is the basic building block of social change. Especially now more than ever, where people don’t read a lot, film and television have become even more powerful, if that’s possible. The reach is much vaster than you might be able to get with a book. Much faster and much quicker. I was very fortunate to have worked on a few films before this full time on social impact, so I was able to learn the art of social impact filmmaking. I worked on This Changes Everything, a film on gender discrimination in Hollywood which started filming before #metoo really broke open the conversation. My role was to tie the content to really actionable cues and move the audience to action, it’s a real art. 

MOVING AUDIENCES TO ACTION 

You have to have a clear call to action. On a meta level, you will impact change with your story, but it’s slower when it’s about awareness and perception. But you can’t stop there to really move the needle. People might say, “Oh climate change, that’s so sad I’ll never forget it and I’ll remember the next time I turn the light on and off.” That’s one way. But then you can also make a concrete call to action in the film and materials and platforms that enable audiences to engage and put their money toward a cause, join a movement, sign a petition, demand certain actions, or attend impact events. 

I learned a lot about the distribution pipeline for film that is just for education –– creating packages and study guides and tools that allow us to integrate education into the film campaign. That’s something a lot of filmmakers don’t have either the foresight or resources to do. 

WHAT SHE LOOKS FOR IN A STORY

Soleil means “sun” in French. The analogy we use is that we need to shine light on cultures of the world that are not being seen, well represented, or not understood at all. So we ask three questions. 1) Does it shine light or unlock a cultural perspective? 2) Does it defy stereotypes? 3) Does it cross borders? 

We try to work on content where even if the domain is in one place, the cultures within it have jumping off points and the issue is globally relevant. On a creative level we think about how to get audiences to act and change behavior, and that’s where having compelling characters and more typical film strategies come into play. Do you care about this person? Do you root for them? How complex are they? 

I reject content that paints our culture in a very stereotypical way. I go across genres, different countries, coming out of places I’m not familiar with because you have different styles of filmmaking in different parts of the world. Different pacing, different artistic tools and mechanisms. 

GOING BEYOND LIMITED PERSPECTIVES IN THE WEST 

Look at what we’re being denied. What are you missing out by only seeing western films/stories? There’s so much we’re missing. We’re starving ourselves of a much more inspired perspective. That’s the consequence of not seeing content outside of a few countries.  

LAUNCHING A PODCAST

The podcast, Soleil Spotlight, is a natural extension of what we’re doing. Because we’re working in television and film, no one can see or touch our products during that two-year cycle. But with the podcast, it’s a current touchpoint to start to get the brand and stories out there. Up next we have an Indian filmmaker and one of the top producers from Nollywood. 

*Soleil Spotlight is a new podcast series shining light on underrepresented content creators and industry leaders from the diasporas of the Global South. 

SOLEIL STORIES WE CAN'T WAIT TO SEE 

We can’t share a lot, because most of our projects are in development or production. In total we have 16 projects that we’re actively producing at different stages of development. We’re doing film, television, and branded content –– narrative and unscripted. On the scripted side, those are short films that have been released and we’re working with the filmmakers to do the feature length. The Deliverer, featured on the first podcast episode, was inspired by two real characters: a notorious drug lord from Trinidad who was executed in the 90s, and an environmental activist who went on a hunger strike and got the government to not build a refinery in his village. That was done as a short film, did the festival circuit, and now we’re working with filmmaker Paul Pryce to develop the feature. It’s a really interesting intersection of the Venezuelan refugee crisis, politics and corruption in Trinidad, and the international drug trade. 

Also on the narrative side we’re working on Lodgers, a satirical comedy about immigration. The pilot was done as a short, and we’re developing the series now. 

On the unscripted side, we’re working on some sports and music documentaries. One is about Black opera in New Orleans and a company recreating the lost works of 18th century enslaved people. A lot of people don’t know Black people sang opera. On the sports side, we’re working on a project about basketball in Africa, and minorities in winter sports which was inspired by a feature we shot called Black Skeleton sponsored by Nike about the first Black and first African woman to compete in the Olympics in Skeleton. We shot that one in five countries, and it opened our eyes to the bigger systemic barriers around minorities and winter sports. 

ON CHALLENGING THE BIAS IN FUNDING TO WHITE AND WESTERN-CENTRIC PROJECTS 

This is an issue we’re tackling head on, and it’s basically why we exist. That transcultural focus translates to how we’re positioning ourselves. We want to be a connector between the storytellers and the holders of capital. Leveraging our western presence, experience, and networks to work with western minority and Global South creatives to unlock their visions at a high level. This is another myth we want to debunk –– that stories from these parts of the world are low quality. These communities haven’t had the resources and access. This has been controlled by white westerners. We’re positioning ourselves and those are the gaps we want to bridge going forward. 

We’re leveraging our understanding of audiences to help minority creatives tap into new markets. Many people of the diasporas don’t get to see content that represents them, and they’re not supported to market their content globally. You have people like Bong Joon-ho who did Parasite, Ryan Coogler, Lulu Wang –– the talent is there, but the resources and access hasn’t been there. We want to debunk the notion of these audiences being niche, because these audiences are global majorities. We want to be the connecting point. 

We also want to create co-production opportunities bringing creators from these different markets together. In the crews we build, we bring people from different cultures and nationalities together which fuels creativity and content and an exchange of learning. It’s something we do deliberately as we put these project crews together –– crews who otherwise would not have worked together or known each other. People work with who they know in this industry, it’s very insular. I’m really proud of this. We’re paving the way.

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 

That’s been challenging. Many of our projects aren’t in production yet, so it’s been pretty good because we’re still in the development phase, so we have more time in development. We actually are seeing that we’re getting things greenlit quicker because a) the appetite for content has shot through the roof and b) the networks are looking for diverse storytelling which they haven’t had the pulse on before, so that’s opened up some opportunities for us. Even within the diverse storytelling landscape, our Global South perspective turns out to be a unique perspective people are gravitating toward. On the investment side, that’s more challenging. And production-wise, we’re facing questions like “How are we going to shoot this?” We’ve come up with some archival concepts because we knew we wouldn’t be able to shoot live, so that impacted the creative. It’s a mixed bag for us. There’s some great things and some challenges; but we feel really excited about where we are. 

Lodgers , directed by Keni Ogunlola, is a satirical comedy series about immigration being developed by E'Cinema Live and Soleil Entertainment.

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