(Re)Considering Harlem: Legacies and Futures Streaming for free March 5th-19th

“This is the land of opportunity… Opportunity for what?”  -A Dream Is What You Wake Up From

“... a world so fluid and shifting that often within the mind the real and the unreal merge, and the marvelous beckons from behind the same sordid reality that denies its existence.” -Ralph Ellison, “Harlem Is Nowhere”

Harlem has always been in a state of flux. It has a cachet that lingers, even as its landmarks are erased and its legend fades in the names of progress and industry. The push-pull of myth and reality leaves in its wake a wide berth, one in which “life in Harlem” can translate to mean any number of things. 

This fourth iteration of the “Made In Harlem” film series explores how the mythologies of Harlem reconcile (or do not) with its realities, how the ghosts of Harlem’s storied past find their way into its present. The aim of the series is to consider (and reconsider) Harlem, its visuals, its narratives, its legacies, and its futures. These words are plural and always have been.

Curated by Andrea L. Battleground
Co-presented by the Documentary Forum at CCNY & Third World Newsreel

Zoom Q&A with filmmaker Karen D. Taylor (IN THE FACE OF WHAT WE REMEMBER), Marcia Smith (president and co-founder of FIRELIGHT MEDIA), CR Capers (Harlem Film House), and series curator Andrea L. Battleground.

Full Lineup

From These Roots William Greaves, 1974, 28 min

The Quiet One Sidney Meyers, 1948, 65 min.

The Torture of Mothers: The Case of the Harlem Six, Woodie King, Jr., 1980, 52 min.

A Dream Is What You Wake Up From Larry Bullard and Carolyn Y. Johnson, 1978, 50 min.

In The Face of What We Remember: Oral Histories of 409 and 555 Edgecombe Avenue Karen D. Taylor, 2019, 45 min.

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