Advance registration has closed but tickets may still be available at the door; an in-person stand-by line will form in the lobby of the Lenfest Center at 5:30 PM. There is no charge for this event.

Courtesy of NEON

A screening of the stirring new documentary Once Upon a Time in Harlem, a film over 50 years in the making. Followed by a conversation between filmmakers David Greaves ‘72 and Anne de Mare and Racquel Gates, Associate Professor, Film and Media Studies.

About the film:

A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. For four hours, this extraordinary group—many of whom had not seen each other in fifty years—reminisced, critiqued, argued, laughed, and drank while wrestling with their place in a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. Shot on 16mm film, newly restored and now directed by Greaves’s son David, this landmark film is at once a self-exploration and an inquiry into the heart of the critical mass of energy called the Harlem Renaissance. William Greaves’s intent was not only to document these artists and intellectuals as they spoke about their lives and work. but also to plumb the meaning of the extraordinary creative period in which they lived to help us better understand how culture has been passed on from one generation to another and the role that the artist plays in keeping it alive.