Exclusive Trailer for Restored James Baldwin Documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine Charts a Hero’s Life

This summer marks the centennial of James Baldwin, whose brilliance, boldness, and bravura have made him the rare Civil Rights icon who’s also endured as subject of cinematic interest. A restoration of portrait par excellence I Heard It Through the Grapevine will open (courtesy The Film Desk) on January 12 at Film Forum, which is also screening a series of titles concerning Baldwin. Ahead of this weekend’s engagement, we’re pleased to exclusively debut a new trailer.

Pat Hartley and Dick Fontaine’s film finds Baldwin recounting his travails through the Civil Rights Movement, from southern cities (Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta) to Newark, all the while arguing progress in a post-Civil Rights era isn’t what it seems.

“[In I Heard It Through the Grapevine], James Baldwin [1924–1987] 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,” notes Rich Blint, writer/Baldwin scholar and Jake Perlin, film programmer/distributor. “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.’”

Watch below:

“Baldwin” runs January 12-25 at Film Forum.

This summer marks the centennial of James Baldwin, whose brilliance, boldness, and bravura have made him the rare Civil Rights icon who’s also endured as subject of cinematic interest. A restoration of portrait par excellence I Heard It Through the Grapevine will open (courtesy The Film Desk) on January 12 at Film Forum, which is also screening a series of titles concerning Baldwin. Ahead of this weekend’s engagement, we’re pleased to exclusively debut a new trailer.

Pat Hartley and Dick Fontaine’s film finds Baldwin recounting his travails through the Civil Rights Movement, from southern cities (Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta) to Newark, all the while arguing progress in a post-Civil Rights era isn’t what it seems.

“[In I Heard It Through the Grapevine], James Baldwin [1924–1987] 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,” notes Rich Blint, writer/Baldwin scholar and Jake Perlin, film programmer/distributor. “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.’”

Watch below:

“Baldwin” runs January 12-25 at Film Forum.