Directed by Terence Dixon • Documentary • With James Baldwin • 1970 • 27 minutes
Shot in Paris, a city in which Baldwin lived for nine years after leaving New York — a decision he has described “as a matter of life and death.” The early sequences find Baldwin uncooperative, even hostile to the British director and cameraman, clearly resenting their controlling role. He brings them to the Bastille, whose significance he explains: “They tore down this prison… I am trying to tear a prison down too. When a white man tears down a prison, he is trying to liberate himself. When I tear down a prison, I am simply another savage. What you don’t understand is that you for me are my prison guard, you are my warden. I am battling you, not you Terry, but you the English, you the French.” —Film Forum
Picture and audio restoration by Mark Rance, Watchmaker Films, London
Up Next in African-American Docs
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Myth of a Colorblind France
Directed by Alan Govenar • Documentary • With Tyler Stovall, Monique Y. Wells, Thomas Allen Harris, Karim Toure, Akin Babatunde • 2020 • 86 minutes
For more than a century, African American artists, authors, musicians and others have traveled to Paris to liberate themselves from the racism of th...
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Edith+Eddie
Directed by Laura Checkoway • Documentary • 2017 • 29 minutes
Edith Hill and Eddie Harrison got married in Virginia at ages 96 and 95. Dancing at the honky-tonk and going to church, their newlywed life is filled with affection, prayer and faith. Since tying the knot, both Edith and Eddie have ex...
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South
Directed by Chantal Akerman • Documentary • 1999 • 70 minutes
Inspired by her love of William Faulkner and James Baldwin, renowned director Chantal Akerman had planned to produce a meditation on the American South. However, just days before she was to begin filming, James Byrd, Jr. was murdered ...
