A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm) has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered at the home of Duke Ellington with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. For four hours, this extraordinary group – many of whom had not seen each other in fifty years – reminisced, critiqued, argued, laughed and drank while wrestling with their place in a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. Shot on 16mm film, newly restored and now directed by Greaves’ son David, this landmark film is at once a self-exploration and an inquiry into the heart of the critical mass of energy called the Harlem Renaissance.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Legend
OCOpen Captioned
Special Content
35mm
SFSensory Friendly
Cinema Studies
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
2026. 100 m. William Greaves/David Greaves. NEON Rated. US. English. Rated PG-13.
Tickets: $11 (members), $16 (nonmembers)
"A clarion call from across space and time, like a message in a bottle, its very existence is a wild gift."
"No matter one’s distance from the Harlem Renaissance, Once Upon A Time In Harlem transforms its cultural milieu into personal memory, suffusing history with enormity and reinvigorating it for generations to come."
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