Sínelection: Once Upon a Time in Harlem

In 1972, filmmaker William Greaves brought together a group of artists, writers, musicians, actors and intellectuals connected to the Harlem Renaissance for an afternoon at Duke Ellington’s townhouse. The gathering was filmed but remained unseen for more than five decades. In 2026, Greaves’ son David shapes this footage into a film that brings these voices back into the present.

What begins as a conversation about the Harlem Renaissance gradually opens into something much wider. Recalling friends, movements and struggles of the past, the participants reflect on the relationship between art, politics and Black life in America. Jazz, literature, photography, theatre and the politics of language all enter the conversation, as memories of a transformative cultural movement meet the realities of the present.

Made more than 50 years after its images were recorded, Once Upon a Time in Harlem is both a historical document and an encounter across generations, asking what happens when a living memory becomes an archive and how it still resonates today.