Film Forum

“A thrilling documentary about James Baldwin by the Haitian director Raoul Peck… At the heart of I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is Baldwin’s never-completed project about the civil rights movement and three of his assassinated friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr… The documentary resurrects Baldwin’s unrealized venture, primarily using his own words -- Samuel L. Jackson provides the moving, modulated voice-over – to create a portrait of one man’s confrontation with a country that, murder by murder, as he once put it, ‘devastated my universe.’ Brilliantly edited, (the film) moves across time and space seamlessly – insistently – sliding from the historical civil rights movement to more recent events, including Ferguson. Mr. Peck draws on a wealth of found and original visual material, including appalling excerpts from the F.B.I.’s files on Baldwin… Mr. Peck is a consummate filmmaker who deserves a larger American audience. He’ll get it when I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO opens.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times 

With support from the Richard Brick, Geri Ashur & Sara Bershtel Fund for Social Justice Documentaries.

USA / FRANCE / BELGIUM / SWITZERLAND    2016    93 MINS.    MAGNOLIA  PICTURES

Reviews

Academy Award® Nominee!
Best Documentary Feature

 (highest rating)
“Superb. Masterfully addressing the American racial divide, past and present, director Raoul Peck’s six-years-in-the-making documentary ...is a galvanizing, ominous film, thrumming with a sense of history repeating itself… Peck does a magnificent job of honoring Baldwin’s concept...There hasn’t been as concise, targeted and rigorous an examination of the problems of being black, smart and outspoken, until now.”
– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

“One of the best movies you are likely to see this year.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“A transcendent documentary. A meditation on the prophetic brilliance and the very being of James Baldwin.”
– Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“A fascinating and gorgeous and very powerful film.”
– Bob Mondello, NPR

“One of the best movies about the civil rights era ever made.”
– Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian