Film Forum

USA/UK, 1982
Produced and directed by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley
Approx. 92 min. 4K DCP Restoration

“James Baldwin retraces his time in the South during the Civil Rights Movement with his trademark brilliance and insight on the passage of more than two decades. From Selma to Birmingham, Atlanta to the battleground beaches of St. Augustine, Florida, accompanied by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, and back north for a visit to Newark with Amiri Baraka, Baldwin lays bare the fiction of progress in post-Civil Rights America — wondering ‘what happened to those who did not die, but whose lives were smashed on Freedom Road.’” – Rich Blint, writer/Baldwin scholar

Restored by Harvard Film Archive. Special thanks to Gugulethu Mseleku, Smokey Fontaine, the late Dick Fontaine, and Pat Hartley.

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

RELEASED BY THE FILM DESK

Reviews

“The strength of I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE lies not so much in the future it prescribes or predicts but rather in the stories it recalls and the emotions it revives. Baldwin and directors Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley have used their talents to add new images that inform and move us deeply.”
– David Remnick, Washington Post

“A valuable reminder of the civil rights period as it retraces the pulsating panorama and some of the poignant pauses in the history of the struggle. It is  more important now than it would’ve been five years ago.”
– Ali Stanton, New York Amsterdam News

“An admixture of poetry and politics that is extremely well made. Baldwin (from the actual locations) offers present day thought, poetry, and reflection. The windows of the past fill the screen and the Movement’s proud and painful lessons of heroism, sacrifice, dedication, and even death, become vividly clear.”
– Charles Rogers, New York Voice

“As much an essay as a documentary, with Baldwin a seemingly eager participant and co-author of the work. Baldwin and his old comrades have no time for nostalgia. They’re clear-eyed and angry about the murders of dear friends and about how little progress was made despite the sacrifices. I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE gives lie to the comforting notion that suffering and sacrifice lead inevitably to justice and progress. It’s a harsh truth, precisely and artfully rendered.”
– Darren Hughes, Filmmaker Magazine