“I don’t know anyone here.”

On 25th August 2014, at age 87, acclaimed documentary filmmaker William Greaves sadly passed away. The director was responsible for many tremendous works of non-fiction, but perhaps the most significant, up until this year, was the genre-defying Symbiopyschotaxiplasm: Take One. A film that challenged the very principle of what is truly natural in the world of performance, never making you believe whether its layers of meta-text are an act of genuineness or rehearsal. 

In 1972, William Greaves brought together all the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance for a party at Duke Ellington’s townhouse that he intended to film. Up until last year, to our eye, it was thought that following the director’s death, the film would never see the light of day. Then, suddenly toward the end of 2025, it was announced that David Greaves, the son of William, had brought together the footage his father had shot that day and finally completed the 54-year-old project, which was to have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. To put it simply, Once Upon a Time in Harlem is nothing short of a miracle.

The film begins in a mode of convention. It is obvious to those who know William’s work to see which portions are the more untouched moments, and those in which David has implemented his own tone too. Repeated name cards appear on the screen as we pass by the faces of a celebrated array of journalists, muralists, painters, writers, filmmakers, musicians, theatrical producers, librarians, historians, and poets. Some of these include Richard Bruce Nugent, Aaron Douglas, Ernest Crichlow, Eubie Blake, Ida Mae Cullen, Leigh Whipper, Regina Andrews, and so many more. 

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The groundwork is laid in the first portion of the film, as the film favours more Individual interview moments to put us into the time and place in which they are reminiscing about. While this beginning has a slower pace, I now see it as a necessary evolution of both the documentary and the touching father-and-son connection on formal display. And then, William’s presence and his distinct sense of active filmmaking take centre stage. Observation and instigation of conversation erupts around a table, as we watch these indispensable cultural and social figures celebrate the people who brought them to where they are now, whilst arguing about whose impact on the Renaissance was of the biggest importance, about whether it’s still going or when it actually started. Much of this film’s sense of identity comes from its ability to let us simply watch these discussions unfold; tactile close-ups.

“I don’t know that it was a renaissance. It was an awakening.”

David brings back one of his father’s best formal tricks: the famous split screen. We monitor simultaneous discussion and reaction to lost history unfolding before our own eyes. The insert of eye shots and moments of facial disapproval only add to its wonderful sense of personality. A film about a son coming to grips with his father’s work, and, as it’s put in the film, a collective whose goals are the same, but whose roads are vastly different, just like the pair of filmmakers whose hands this bears.

William is not a passive, invisible documentarian like so many of the genre greats; he engineers non-fictional marvels that thrive on chain reactions and moments of cinematic phenomenon. Here David’s hand really adds a potent sense of time to this whole thing: how far it has been since this event, and how much further it is since the discussed events took place. He supplies the archival art and the finishing touches of relevant poetic work attributed to the faces we see. 

Once Upon a Time in Harlem is a sensation that pushes beyond the bounds of Williams’ active camera, but is made extraordinary by the immortalisation of its temporal form and function; it is as timeless as the impact of the Harlem Renaissance. Despite the discourse that has been on its relevance within here, the image of each larger-than-life face is proof enough. Greaves is just as much a part of this as they are.

★★★★★

Playing at the BFI London Film Festival on 10th and 11th October / Richard Bruce Nugent, Aaron Douglas, Ernest Crichlow / Dir: William Greaves and David Greaves / Neon

About the Author

Oscar Trinick

Editor

Oscar Trinick is a multi-platform freelance film journalist, podcast co-host, and occasional sports writer. He has bylines on Movie Marker, Soundsphere, Film News Blitz, The Rolling Tape and Sport Just Sport. He has an honours degree in Journalism with an NCTJ accreditation. He has also had past internships with Trill Mag and SIP Media Solutions.

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