Once Upon a Time in Harlem

A film 50 years in the making

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.

Documentary

Aaron Douglas

(Self (archival footage))

Richard Bruce Nugent

(Self (archival footage))

Ernest Crichlow

(Self (archival footage))

Eubie Blake

(Self (archival footage))

Leigh Whipper

(Self (archival footage))

Arna Bontemps

(Self (archival footage))

William Greaves

(Self (archival footage))

James Van Der Zee

(Self (archival footage))

Ida Mae Cullen

(Self (archival footage))

Noble Sissle

(Self (archival footage))

Romare Bearden

(Self (archival footage))