Looking For Langston

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The life and work of Langston Hughes in the 1930s and 1940s during the renaissance of Jazz and Blues in Harlem, is a prime example for the identity of the gay, black artist. Poetical texts by Essex Hemphill interact with dramatised sequences and archive material, to produce a bond betwenn the stylistic levels of the film.

details

  • Runtime

    40 min
  • Country

    Great Britain
  • Year of Presentation

    1989
  • Year of Production

    1989
  • Director

    Isaac Julien
  • Cast

    Ben Ellison, Matthew Baidoo, John Wilson, Akim Mogaji, Dencil Williams, Guy Burgess, Simon Fogg, James Dublin, Harry Donaldson, Jimmy Somerville
  • Production Company

    Sankofa Film & Video Ltd.
  • Berlinale Section

    Panorama
  • Berlinale Category

    Feature Film
  • Teddy Award Winner

    Best Feature Film

Biography Isaac Julien

Isaac Julien has forged a critical dialogue on issues of race and sexuality through his work in film, video installation, and photography. Julien, who is based in London, first gained international attention in the 1980s for his provocative feature films, documentaries and experimental video works, which explored black and gay identities. His more recent multi-media installation works extend this inquiry into poetic yet politically charged meditations on representations of race and sexuality.
Isaac Julien was born in 1960 in London. He graduated from St. Martin's School of Art in 1984, where he studied painting and fine art film. He founded the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, and was a founder member of Normal Films in 1999. He received the Semaine de la Critique Prize at Cannes Film Festival, and has received a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship Award; the Pratt and Whitney Canada Grand Prize; an Andy Warhol Foundation Award; Grand Jury Award, KunstFilmBiennale, Cologne, Germany, and a Ford Foundation Award. He has exhibited at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Art Pace, San Antonio, Texas; FACT, Film Art & Creative Technology, Liverpool, England; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Studio Museum of Harlem, New York. His film installations and photographs have been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Liverpool, England; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York; Irish Museum of Modern Art, and Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art. His films have been screened at the Dakar Biennale, Senegal; Jeonju International Film Festival, Korea; Rotterdam Film Festival, The Netherlands; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and Tate Britain, London, among others.
Isaac Julien lives and works in London.

Filmography Isaac Julien

1991 Young Soul Rebels | 2010 Better Life | 2013 Playtime | 2015 Stones Against Diamonds | 2019 Ghost of Lina Bo Bardi