William Greaves’ Landmark Document of the1972 National Black Political Convention
NATIONTIME
4K Restoration by Indiecollect
Original full-length version was miraculously found and restored in
4K by IndieCollect, supervised by Louise Greaves
& funded by Jane Fonda and the HFPA Trust
Opening Oct 23 in Flordia with Coral Gables Art Cinema Virtual Screening Room
“Buzzes with long-term historical power.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“This rousing and revelatory documentary celebrates a diversity of black voices, finding support and solidarity even amid expected tensions and divisions.”
– Malin Kan, AFI Film Festival 2020
“The 52-year filmmaking career of Greaves has resulted in an immense, multi-faceted body of work. Greaves was able to defy social, racial and economic barriers to become one of the most prolific documentary filmmakers of his era.”
– Scott MacDonald, William Greaves: Filmmaking as Mission
(Columbia University Press, 2021)
Nationtime is the long-lost film that William Greaves made about the National Black Political Convention of 1972, when 10,000 black politicians, activists and artists from across the political spectrum went to Gary, Indiana, to forge a national unity platform in advance of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions.
Considered too radical for television broadcast at the time, it has since circulated only in a heavily edited 60-minute version. The new restoration, long thought lost and unearthed in a Pittsburgh warehouse in 2018, returns the film to its original 80-minute length and colorful visual quality 48 years after the convention took place.
The film is narrated by Sidney Poitier combined with poems recited by Harry Belafonte. Delegates included Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, Coretta Scott King, Pan-Africanist Artist and Activist Amiri Baraka, Dr. Betty Shabazz, PUSH founder Rev. Jesse Jackson, Fannie Lou Hamer and Queen Mother Moore, and elected officials Ron Dellums, Charles Diggs, Walter Fauntroy, Richard Hatcher, Carl McCall. Activists and entertainers Belafonte, Dick Gregory, Isaac Hayes and Richard Roundtree performed for the crowds over the three days.
Seale said at the Convention, “Revolution is about the right for the humanity of Black people in this country here and across the world to survive.”
In English / U.S. / 1973 / 80 min. / DCP