film

"Three-hundred years of white supremacy in South Africa have placed us in bondage, stripped us of our dignity, robbed us of our self-esteem and surrounded us with hate.

"A supremely moving documentary here, which charts the life of Ernest Cole, a black photographer who heroically exposed the horror of apartheid in his native South Africa, work which eventually led to him having to flee to what he initially believed would be a better and safer life in the United States. In 2017, 60,000 negatives of his work were found in a Swedish bank safe, bringing his work to greater prominence and leading to this fantastic 2024 film by Raoul Peck, the Haitian filmmaker who was also behind the searing James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro.

LaKeith Stanfield voices Cole, who was South Africa's first black freelance photographer, extensively documenting apartheid before leaving for the US in 1966, secretly taking his apartheid project prints with him. This film charts the struggles that plagued Cole wherever he went, and the deeply important work he completed during his tragically short life, with consummate clarity.