The fourth season of the National Geographic/Disney+ scripted bio-series “Genius” is set to release Feb. 1 on Nat Geo and tells the combined stories of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Sam Sokolow, the newest lecturer of world cinema, is an executive producer on the series, and now balances his production work in Los Angeles with teaching filmmaking for mobile media to students here at Clemson.
Sokolow outlined the criteria for selecting the new subject of “Genius” each season.
“You have to be a genius. Like, full-on, who changed the world,” Sokolow said. “You have to have a name that’s recognizable in one name, like Einstein or Aretha. And you have to have a dramatic personal life story worthy of a TV series.”
These characteristics sound simple, but they lead the creative team on the search for a topical figure whose genius has a renewed importance in today’s social landscape.
“The stakes of civil rights are always important, and certainly today, vital,” Sokolow notes.
“With everything happening in the world right now, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are inspired choices.”
The fourth season of the series that got Sokolow nominated for his first two Emmy Awards will premiere during his second semester at Clemson.
Sokolow taught at the Boston University Los Angeles Program for eight years before coming to Clemson and emphasized a balance between film production and film studies.
“I don’t believe that you can be really great at executing if you don’t have a sense of film history, film storytelling, where this all comes from. I think film theory and film production are inseparable,” he added.
Sokolow brings his passion for the filmmaking process to these hills, teaching world cinema’s first comprehensive production class.
He found his true love in producing through his experience in multiple roles.
“I love the process of producing,” Sokolow said. “I love the unique thrill that comes when you see something on screen that didn’t exist before you got involved with it. And I love collaborating with world-class talent.”
Sokolow hails from Manhattan and attended Boston University. After college, he headed off to Los Angeles, where he worked as a production assistant on the sets of made-for-TV movies. Life would eventually bring him back to New York for an eight-year period, which yielded what he cites as one of his career-defining experiences: making his first independent feature film.
In New York, he spent some time as a crime reporter for the New York Daily News, an experience he says taught him “a lot about the human condition.”
He recalls an editor telling him, “You’ll be in Hollywood one day, sitting by the pool reading scripts, and you’ll know humanity because of this job.”
“He was right,” Sokolow said.
Sokolow has also relied on his strong work ethic.
“There’s going to be chapters where you may not be doing the job you want or working in film or TV at all maybe, and you have to keep creating and keep going,” he said. “So the one thing I knew nobody could keep me from doing was working on my creative projects and working really hard at them. Persistence and resilience go a long way in the entertainment industry.”
Sokolow turned his focus to a script he had written and partnered up with a member of his softball league who happened to own an advertising agency. His teammate offered him a temporary production position, which bolstered his reel and led to another connection, and another, as those things go.
“I managed to put together a plan to try and make an independent movie, and that plan heavily involved all of these resources that I was fortunate enough to get committed to me because I had used these people and was loyal to them,” he explained. “They showed that loyalty back to me, and that helped me get my first feature film made, which propelled me back to LA.”
“Genius: MLK/X” will stream on Disney+ and Hulu on Feb. 2, one day after releasing on Nat Geo.
