Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

The latest film by Haitian director Raoul Peck, Oscar-nominated for his documentary on writer James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro (2016), tells the story of South African photographer Ernest Cole (1940-1990), who was the first artist to bravely expose the horrors of apartheid. His book House of Bondage, published in 1967 when he was only 27 years old, forced him into exile in New York and Europe for the rest of his life, which was marked by depression and a sense of denied belonging, making it impossible for him to find a balance. Following the 2017 discovery of 60,000 negatives in a Swedish bank vault, the film chronicles Cole’s life, exploring the challenges he faced both as an artist and as a Black man in a deeply racist world. His photographs vividly capture the brutality of racial segregation in South Africa and the United States, revealing unsettling parallels between apartheid and the Jim Crow laws in the U.S. South. Through his own words, interpreted by actor and rapper LaKeith Stanfield, and the black-and-white images by Cole, Peck weaves a universal story of resistance, dignity, and the fight for human rights. The True America, a book featuring Cole’s long-hidden photographs, was released in 2024, while the film won the Œil d’or for Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival.