The new James Baldwin documentary ‘I Am Not Your Negro’ is here (VIDEO)
The trailer for the upcoming documentary based on the gay screen writer James Baldwin has been released.
I Am Not Your Negro heavily features archived clips of Baldwin and uses lines taken from a memoir written by Baldwin.
The documentary, which is directed by Raoul Peck, is based on Baldwin’s unfinished memoir Remember This House.
The memoir is only 30 pages long because Baldwin died before finishing it in 1987.
The manuscript gives accounts of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evers’ assassinations.
Samuel L. Jackson appears on the documentary to provide thoughtful voice overs which explore ’a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America’, from the beginning of the civil rights movement to today’s Black Lives Matter protests.
The documentary received rave reviews after it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
The Los Angeles Times described it as “a mesmerising cinematic experience” and the Amsterdam News called it a “wake up call to every person in America”.
Variety called it “a kaleidoscopic journey through the life and mind of James Baldwin, whose voice speaks even more powerfully today than it did 50 years ago.”
Jordan Hoffman, writing for the Guardian, said it was a “stunning look at the civil rights era’, while the Hollywood Reporter called it a ‘vividly intelligent documentary.”
You can watch the full trailer here:
