UNCC Film Festival Screening - I Am Not Your Negro

Experience the rich world of contemporary films at the 2019 International Film Festival. The Gantt Center is excited to have teamed up with UNC Charlotte to bring one of the 2019 International Film Festival screenings to the Gantt Center.

Documentary by Raoul Peck, Haiti/France 2017/95 min.

Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s brilliant documentary on racism in America is an essential work for our era, drawing a clear line from the Civil Rights struggle to today’s Black Lives Matter movement via the thought of James Baldwin, one of the most lucid, fearless American thinkers on race (and many other matters). Based on Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House, which considered the history of racism through memories of Baldwin’s friends the civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, I Am Not Your Negro analyzes white denial and black experience of racial oppression in a historical and contemporary context, bringing Baldwin’s observations into the present through powerful juxtapositions of his words (read in voiceover by Samuel L. Jackson) and, for instance, images of the Ferguson protests. Peck also generously culls from archival sources, notably the extensive talk show appearance in which Baldwin, an eloquent and spirited orator, publicly expresses that the “negro” is a white construct, and anything but a definition of who he is. By providing an impassioned, accessible introduction to James Baldwin’s work and thought, Peck has given us a crucial reference to address ongoing injustice in the United States.

A discussion will follow the screening.

Presented as part of The Tournées Festival, made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.

Additional sponsors include the Alliance Française de Charlotte and the UNC Charlotte French Club.