I Am Not Your Negro – TIFF 2016 – Episode 213

Raoul and I talk about white privilege, consumerism and class economics, apathy and ignorance and how most issues are not about guilt, but about “knowing”.

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Synopsis

Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck (Moloch Tropical, Murder in Pacot) creates a stunning meditation on what it means to be Black in America.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his new endeavour: the writing of his final book, Remember This House, recounting the lives and successive assassinations of his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Baldwin was not able to complete the book before his death, and the unfinished manuscript was entrusted to director Raoul Peck (Moloch Tropical, Murder in Pacot) by the writer’s estate.

Built exclusively around Baldwin’s words, Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro delves into the complex legacy of three lives (and deaths) that permanently marked the American social and political landscape. Framing the unfinished work as a radical narration about race in America, Peck matches Baldwin’s lyrical rhetoric with rich archival footage of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and connects these historical struggles for justice and equality to the present-day movements that have taken shape in response to the killings of young African-American men including Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, and Amir Brooks.

Exploring what it means to be Black in America today, Peck reflects on the legacy of racial violence that still permeates the country.

In Baldwin’s words, “You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettos without becoming something monstrous yourselves. And furthermore, you give me a terrifying advantage: you never had to look at me; I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” By revealing the deep connections between past and present injustice, I Am Not Your Negro weaves an epic narrative about America’s irrational relationship with skin colour — a relationship that would be absurd were it not so tragic.

Biography

Raoul Peck was born in Port-au- Prince, Haiti. His many films includeHaitian Corner (88), The Man on the Shore (93), Sometimes in April(05), and the documentary Fatal Assistance (13). His films Lumumba(00) and Murder in Pacot (14) screened at the Festival. I Am Not Your Negro (16) is his latest feature.