Once Upon a Time in Harlem, a documentary by the pioneering filmmaker William Greaves, is finally receiving its international premiere at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight more than 50 years after the cameras first rolled. The film, completed by Greaves' son David and granddaughter Liani after his death in 2014, centers on a cocktail party Greaves hosted at Duke Ellington's townhouse in Harlem in August 1972.
Greaves, who had written in 1969 about his fury over racially degrading stereotypes in American cinema, aimed to capture the voices of surviving figures from the Harlem Renaissance. The movement had transformed Black American culture in the 1920s, but by the 1970s, their stories were at risk of being forgotten. He invited every surviving participant he could locate, including painter Aaron Douglas, queer artist Richard Bruce Nugent, poet Arna Bontemps, musicians Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, photographer James Van Der Zee, and Ida Mae Cullen, widow of poet Countee Cullen.
A Cocktail Party Preserved on Film
For four hours, Greaves filmed the guests as they laughed, reminisced, and debated. The film follows the natural rhythm of the party: tentative greetings and warm memories gradually give way to animated discussions about politics, language, and legacy. David Greaves, who was 22 at the time and worked as a cameraman under his father, described the atmosphere. “I was aware of the people involved and how important they were. My father thought they were extraordinary, and there we were to capture them.”
Duke Ellington was unwell and did not attend, but his sister Ruth was present. The shoot involved four cameras and two crews circulating through the apartment. “Mostly my father just let them freestyle, it was very fluid,” David recalled.
Timely Conversations on Race and Identity
One of the film's strengths is its looseness. At one point, guests debate whether the term “Negro” should be replaced by “Afro-American.” They discuss Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, and the global impact of anti-colonial struggles. Aaron Douglas reflects on jazz, stating: “It would be considered a revolution in relation to other music. It was not a revolution to us.” For David Greaves, these conversations remain strikingly relevant. “When they talk about whether to call themselves Black or Negro, that's a discussion still happening now – you've got Black, African American, people of colour. And there is still this question of what the diaspora should do in relation to Africa.”
He also draws parallels between historical footage in the film of Haile Selassie's 1936 appeal to the League of Nations after Italy's invasion of Ethiopia and modern pleas for international support, such as Volodymyr Zelenskyy's after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. “Selassie didn't get help, but Zelenskyy was able to. And now they're at a point where they're building their own munitions, they're fighting off the Russians with one hand and helping the Gulf states with the other.”
Racial Violence and Erasure of Black History
The film also underscores how recent America's racial violence remains. David points to footage accompanying the anti-lynching poem The Lynching, ending on a young white girl watching with what he calls “fiendish glee.” “She would have been about the same age as my father, which means her child would be my age, her grandchild my daughter's age. All three of us vote. The US is not that far away from that time, just three generations. That is kind of bracing.”
David sees the film's release as timely amid renewed battles over Black history in the US. Asked about Donald Trump's attacks on the Smithsonian over race-focused programming, he said: “You look at it and think, Jesus, who is this? Why do they do this kind of thing? It's who he is, and we just have to deal with it.” He added: “They've been doing everything they can to erase the Black experience in America, even removing signage from park service sites. What this film does is show a group of wonderful people sitting around talking about a time 50 years ago, and about their own present. These giant intellectuals that the media didn't even realise existed.”
From Unfinished Footage to Festival Premiere
The footage was originally shot but unused for Greaves' 1974 documentary From These Roots. Although he went on to make dozens of films, including the experimental landmark Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, he never finished the Harlem project. After his death, the material went to his widow Louise, who worked on it until her death in 2023. David and Liani then took over, restoring and digitizing 60,000 feet of 16mm film. During this process, David says he came to understand his father more deeply. Reading his notes on eastern philosophy, he discovered the intellectual roots of conversations about pain, suffering, and consciousness. “He was a much heavier dude than I had realised,” he said, laughing.
When shaping the final cut, he followed one of his father's principles: “My dad used to say if there's something that affects you viscerally, go with it.” The unfinished film screened in fragments in 2024 and 2025, drawing rapturous responses. Richard Brody of The New Yorker called it “one of the greatest talking pictures” he had ever seen.
David, who has spent the past three decades publishing Our Time Press, a Brooklyn community newspaper focused on Black civic and cultural life, with his wife Bernice Green, hopes to release the film in time for Greaves' centenary in October. Retrospectives are planned in New York and at the Barbican in London. “My dad was appreciated by those who knew documentary film, but he didn't have the acclaim that he has now. This film should cement him as a chronicler of the history of African Americans.”
