Helmed by the Oscar-nominated director of I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is a documentary telling the story of influential South African photographer Ernest Cole. The documentary features narration from Oscar-nominated actor LaKeith Stanfield as the voice of Cole.
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. It has since been screened at other film festivals including the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival, the 49th Toronto International Film Festival, the 68th BFI London Film Festival, and is set to screen next at the 10th Double Exposure Film Festival and DOC NYC.
Release Date
Directed by Raoul Peck, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found opens in select theaters in New York on November 22, 2024, and in Los Angeles on November 29, 2024.
Synopsis
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is a new documentary chronicling the life and work of Ernest Cole, one of the first Black freelance photographers in South Africa, whose early pictures, shocking at the time of their first publication, revealed to the world Black life under apartheid. Cole fled South Africa in 1966 and lived in exile in the U.S., where he photographed extensively in New York City, as well as the American South, fascinated by the ways this country could be at times so vastly different, and at others eerily similar, to the segregated culture of his homeland. During this period, he published his landmark book of photographs denouncing the apartheid, House of Bondage which, while banned in South Africa, cemented Cole’s place as one of the great photographers of his time at the age of 27. After his death, more than 60,000 of his 35mm film negatives were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Most considered these forever lost, especially the thousands of pictures Cole shot in the U.S. Telling his own story through his writings, the recollections of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film is a reintroduction of a pivotal Black artist to a new generation.
“From the get-go, I knew that Ernest was telling his story, so I would need an Ernest. And my Ernest should be an actor, not a narrator, not someone who will just read the text in a monotonous voice,” says director Raoul Peck on his decision to have LaKeith Stanfield voice Cole. “It had to be like I did with I Am Not Your Negro, with Samuel L. Jackson being James Baldwin, you know? And that’s the magic of cinema. Once you are in it, you are in it. You don’t go, “Oh, it’s not Ernest.” So I had a list of actors who I thought could be the voice—the criteria for me are the same ones I would use if I was making a narrative. Who could carry that soul? Who could be real enough to make it work?”
Reviews
Robert Daniels in a Screen International review praised the film, writing, “Eloquently edited and structured, Ernest Cole, Lost And Found becomes both a heartbreaking elegy to the photographer, and a kind of mystery. – What other creative statements were left underdeveloped, unspoken or erased because systemic racism refused to allow him back home? What great movement could have happened? Ernest Cole, Lost And Found mourns the pictures and the man left unseen.”
Owen Gleiberman in a Variety review also praised the film, writing, “Watching “Lost and Found,” you’re moved by a life that veered into tragedy, yet the place it lands lifts you up. More than a great photographer, Ernest Cole captured something essential. By the end you feel the ghost is speaking to you.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Ernest Cole: Lost and Found.