Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Synopsis

South African photographer Ernest Cole was one of the first photographers to expose the horrors of apartheid to a global audience. But after Cole published his 1967 book House of Bondage, he was forced into exile in New York and Europe for the rest of his life. In this powerful tribute to Cole and the necessity of bearing witness, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) recounts Cole’s wanderings and eventual descent into anonymity. Along the way, he rediscovers and reclaims Cole’s astute, vivid portraits and bracing observations of discrimination, both in his homeland and in the United States.

As with Samuel Jackson’s narration in I Am Not Negro, here actor LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah) gives powerful voice to Cole’s sharp, defiant words: “I am collecting evidence,” he memorably says at one point, speaking about those who perpetuate injustice. “And sometimes the monster looks back at me.”