Once upon a Time in Harlem. 2026. USA. Directed by William Greaves, David Greaves. DCP courtesy NEON. 100 min.
Over his illustrious career of more than 50 years, the great American filmmaker William Greaves documented the civil rights movement and historical figures like Muhammad Ali, Paul Robeson, Ida B. Wells, and Ralph Bunche; executive-produced the groundbreaking PBS news program Black Journal; and wrote and directed the radically experimental fiction hybrid Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. Greaves had one last trick up his sleeve before his death in 2014: He left behind an extraordinary archive of unedited footage from a cocktail party he staged and hosted in 1972 at the home of Duke Ellington, an astonishingly vital and poignant gathering of luminaries from the Harlem Renaissance, many of whom had not seen each other for nearly a half century. Among those assembled were the artists Aaron Douglas and Romare Bearden, the composers Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, the photographer James Van Der Zee, the poet Arna Bontemps, and the actor Leigh Whipper. Now, some 50 years later, Greaves’s son, David, one of three cameramen filming that day, has shaped this never-before-seen material into the beautiful and indelible Once upon a Time in Harlem, carrying on the work of Greaves’s wife and longtime partner, Louise Archambault Greaves, and collaborating with Anne de Mare and Greaves’s granddaughter Liani as producers. Celebrated at festivals the world over, the film also represents a kind of homecoming for Greaves himself, having been showcased at MoMA throughout his career.
Accessibility
Tickets are available to members at the Explore category and above beginning two weeks before each screening date. Additional tickets will be released to members and the general public one week before each screening date. Please note that space is extremely limited and tickets will be in high demand. Tickets can be reserved at moma.org/contenders beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET.
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