Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro, MIFF 2017) profiles the man who exposed Apartheid in South Africa in this co-winner of the Cannes L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary.

At just 27 years old, Ernest Cole was exiled from South Africa after the publication of his 1967 book House of Bondage. The photographer was shunned for showing the world the racist horrors faced by his Black countrymen under the Apartheid regime, and spent the rest of his life unmoored from his culture in the US and Europe. It would take decades for the world to catch up to the facts of what was then a daily struggle, in which time he had put down his camera for good. In 2017, more than 60,000 previously unseen negatives were discovered in a Swedish bank, lending a new and provocative lens to Cole’s life. Peck is recognised as one of the titans of contemporary documentary filmmaking.

The Oscar-nominated Haitian director has become known for his incisive and journalistic examinations of racism and the global politics that fuels it. With his latest – narrated by fellow Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah) – he traverses Cole’s formidable work and legacy with eye-opening rigour.

“A rich chronicling of Cole’s unique career, peerless artistry, political strength and moving end … Absorbing.” – Screen Daily