Film Forum

SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: TAKE ONE

William Greaves · 1971 · U.S. · 75 min

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Screen tests are being shot in Central Park for the leads in a possible feature, while another crew films the filming of the tests, and a third films the first two in the context of life in the park going on around them. Avant-garde verité that slipped off the radar for 30 years. *With The First World Festival of Negro Arts The official documentary film of the festival held in Dakar, Senegal in 1966, in which over 2,000 writers, artists, and performers from Africa and the African Diaspora participated. Featuring Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Alvin Ailey, Aimé Césaire, Leopold Senghor, and many other artists, performers, and dignitaries from thirty countries. “You have to realize that the reason why I went into motion pictures was to make films like The First World Festival of Negro Arts. It was the first opportunity I had to make films that expressed a black perspective on reality. Until then I had not had access to financing which would permit that.” – William Greaves 4K restoration by IndieCollect