Looking for Langston + Panel discussion
Experimental film by Isaac Julien about poet Langston Hughes; a prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance, an intellectual and artistic movement around African-American artists that emerged in the 1920s.
In soft black-and-white tones, Isaac Julien explores Langston Hughes’ identity as both a black and gay cultural icon. It’s not a biopic, but rather an impressionistic in memoriam. At times the film evokes the atmosphere of elegant speakeasies in Harlem at the beginning of the previous century, yet mixed with a more contemporaneous feeling of London nightclubs in the 1980s. The film is like a delicate assemblage of styles and feelings: authentic newsreel footage is combined with scripted scenes; dream sequences alternate with readings of Hughes’ and his contemporaries’ poetry.
LOOKING FOR LANGSTON was nothing short of a revolution. The film was released at a time when the AIDS epidemic was wreaking havoc in global queer communities. Julien’s story of being black, gay and oppressed – told in a stately, mournful tone – resonated extra at this painful juncture. From then on, Isaac Julien would be mentioned in the same breath as black queer icons like James Baldwin and Richard Bruce Nugent.
After the screening there will be a panel discussion - including Roxy Jongewaard, assistant curator at Bonnefanten - about the film. This programme is organised in collaboration with QueerCon, a platform for LGBTQIA+ scholarship, activism and community building at UM and beyond.