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Ernest Cole was the first Black South African photographer to publicly expose the apartheid regime’s crimes. At 27, he fled to New York, smuggling his negatives, which became the basis for his influential photo book House of Bondage(1967). Amid a life of poverty, moving between the US and Europe, Cole pondered “How to survive in the West.” He died in 1990, just days after Nelson Mandela’s release, fading into obscurity until 60,000 of his negatives were discovered in a Swedish bank in 2017. Haitian filmmaker
Raoul Peck rehabilitates Cole’s memory in his new documentary, using powerful archival footage and a personal narrative to address the West’s responsibility for racial segregation in South Africa and beyond.
Raoul Peck is a director, screenwriter and producer. Born in Haiti in 1953, raised in the Congo, U.S., France and Germany. He is known for using historical, political, and personal characters to tackle and recount societal issues and historical events. His film I Am Not Your Negro (2016), about the life of James Baldwin and race relations in the United States, was nominated for an Oscar in January 2017 and won a César Award in France. Other notable films by Peck are Lumumba, la mort d’un prophète(1990) and Sometimes in April (2005).