Beyond Keïta’s Frame: Ernest Cole

Seydou Keïta, the premier studio photographer of 20th-century Africa, recorded Mali’s evolution with his camera. Delve deeper into the country’s and diaspora’s stories with this expansive film series, presented in partnership with African Film Festival and in tandem with Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens. Check out other films in this series.

While Keïta worked inside the studio to capture his sitters’ style and construction of a postcolonial identity, other photographers went into the field to document the lived realities of African society. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (Raoul Peck, 2024, 105 min.) chronicles the life and work of Ernest Cole, one of the first Black freelance photographers in South Africa, who took to the streets to reveal life under apartheid.

Cole fled South Africa in 1966 and lived in exile in the United States, where he photographed extensively in New York City and the American South. During this period, he published his landmark book House of Bondage, which cemented Cole’s place as one of the great photographers of his time. Telling his story through his writings, the recollections of those closest to him, and the lens of his uncompromising work, the film introduces a pivotal Black artist to a new generation.

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