I Am Not Your
Negro is described as ‘using Baldwin’s original words and flood of rich
archival material’.
Magnolica
Pictures said describe the documentary, which was directed by Raoul Peck and
features voice-overs by Samuel L. Jackson, as ’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.
I am Not Your
Negro is based on Baldwin’s unfinished memoir manuscript Remember This House,
an account of the lives and assassinations of three of Baldwin’s close friends:
Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Baldwin only
managed to write 30 pages before his death in 1987.
All of
Jackson’s voice overs are lines directly taken from the manuscript, and Baldwin
is heavily featured in archival clips.
‘There are days
when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in
it,’ Baldwin says in an interview featured in the film.
‘I can’t be a
pessimist, because I’m alive.’
In his other
work, openly gay Baldwin – who was an activist, playwright, novelist and poet –
fictionalized personal questions and looked at the social and psychological
pressures faced by black people, but also gay and bi men.
One of his most
famous works is the novel Giovanni’s Room, which has become a gay classic.
Since it
premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, I Am Not Your Negro has received rave
reviews.
Variety’s Owen
Gleiberman 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’.
I Am Not Your
Negro will hit selected theatres on 3 February.
Watch the full trailer below:
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