A new documentary about James Baldwin is in the works, Shadow and Act reports.
While KQED’s 1963 documentary Take This Hammer followed Baldwin around San Francisco, and 2013’s PBS documentary The Price of the Ticket focused on the writer’s life, work, and activism, Raoul Peck’s upcoming documentary will focus on a book Baldwin never wrote on Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evers.
Peck learned about the book from letters Baldwin sent to his agent and said the film will be a “creative documentary.”
“The starting point of the film is to say – yes, he wrote it. He just didn’t bind it together, but if you go through his work, the film is there.”
For Peck, creating a documentary about the iconic writer is something of a passion project for him.
“Baldwin is my life…I started reading Baldwin when I was 14 or 15, and I realized as an adult a lot of the things I was saying came from him.”
Not much else is known about the project—which has been in the works for six years—but with Baldwin’s estate backing Peck with its full support, we get the feeling that this will be one to watch.
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