A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm) has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered at the home of Duke Ellington with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. For four hours, this extraordinary group – many of whom had not seen each other in fifty years – reminisced, critiqued, argued, laughed and drank while wrestling with their place in a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. Shot on 16mm film, newly restored and now directed by Greaves’ son David, this landmark film is at once a self-exploration and an inquiry into the heart of the critical mass of energy called the Harlem Renaissance.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Opens October 30
Tickets: $11 (members), $16 (nonmembers)
"A clarion call from across space and time, like a message in a bottle, its very existence is a wild gift."
"No matter one’s distance from the Harlem Renaissance, Once Upon A Time In Harlem transforms its cultural milieu into personal memory, suffusing history with enormity and reinvigorating it for generations to come."
Coming Soon
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
Opens 10/30
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Opens 10/30
Fatherland
Opens 10/30
Closure
Opens 11/6—Filmmaker Q&A on 11/3


