JAMES BALDWIN: FROM ANOTHER PLACE (1973) DIRECTED BY SEDAT PAKAY
MEETING THE MAN: JAMES BALDWIN IN PARIS (1971) DIRECTED BY TERENCE DIXON
BALDWIN’S N****R (1968) DIRECTED BY HORACE OVÉ

James Baldwin: the brilliant thinker, writer, and activist whose prescient essays, plays, and novels continue to shine a searing light on American racism 35 years after his death. Born in 1924, in Harlem, Baldwin spent much of his life abroad, and in these three short films — made in Istanbul, Paris, and London (with Dick Gregory) — he can be charming, candid, churlish, witty, and acerbic. Whether ruminating on his own “American-ness,” his experience as a child-minister, Black Power, or the nature of love and sexuality, creativity, freedom, and survival — his unsparing opinions are never less than eye-opening, and his onscreen presence never less than riveting. All three films included in this program have been recently restored.