sanitation@lemmy.todayFull title: This Documentary Was Over 50 Years In the Making. It Was Worth It | Speaking with David Greaves, who completed his father’s film, Once Upon A Time In Harlem, with the help of his own daughter. (Unpaywalled)
Just released, the film is a time capsule twice over: footage captured 50 years ago of artists and thinkers who flourished 100 years ago edited for a contemporary audience, one that likely has little familiarity with the Harlem Renaissance beyond a few memorable names like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. For Greaves, who dedicated his life to sharing Black stories on film through numerous documentaries and his Emmy-winning work on the television series Black Journal, the film was a passion project that went unrealized during his lifetime. He worked with the librarians in the film to gather all these critical historical figures in one room, but never found the funding or the time to complete the film. His wife Louise Archimbault Greaves eventually secured a grant to preserve the footage (60,000 feet of film), but it was not until after she too had passed that William’s son David Greaves, along with his daughter Liani Greaves, was able to manifest this long dormant project. Now, it is finally reaching audiences as one of the year’s most critically acclaimed documentaries.
Three generations of filmmakers coming together to tell the story of still another generation of Black creatives — for something so ambitious and grand, the result is still intimate and deeply-felt. David Greaves spoke with Playboy about what it means to finally complete Once Upon A Time In Harlem, and how it came together.