A standout of this year in films, Once Upon a Time in Harlem is an extraordinary feat of resurrection. In 1972, the director William Greaves gathered luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance at Duke Ellington’s house in New York for a party and then filmed their lively conversations—spanning history, politics, and culture. That footage lay in the archives until recently, when William’s son David (credited here as co-director) and granddaughter Liani Greaves (producer), along with producer and editor Anne de Mare, restored and restitched it into an exquisite time capsule that offers a doubly retrospective portrait of Black America—allowing us, the audience of 2026, to witness a gathering from half a century ago of artists who themselves were reflecting on events they lived through another half-century prior.
For this week's episode, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish spoke with Liani Greaves and filmmaker Barry Jenkins about the making and significance of the film and the immense and unparalleled legacy of the late, great William Greaves.
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