Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”

Kate Wolf speaks to filmmaker Raoul Peck about his latest documentary, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” out in theaters now.

By LARB Radio HourDecember 6, 2024

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Kate Wolf speaks to filmmaker Raoul Peck about his latest documentary, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, out in theaters now. The film excavates the life and work of Ernest Cole, the South African photographer, using his own writing and a recently rediscovered archive of his photographs. Cole was one of the first people to capture the brutal realities of the apartheid regime on film. After escaping South Africa for the United States, he published his landmark book on apartheid, House of Bondage (1967). Years later, his career languished, and he became homeless and died of cancer in 1990. Peck’s film looks closely at the conditions that thwarted Cole’s promise as an artist, the legacies of racial segregation, and the devastating ways they still play out today.

Also, Renee Gladman, author of My Lesbian Novel and To After That (TOAF), returns to recommend The Long Form by Kate Brigg.

Plus Alan Minsky, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America (and producer of our show) stops by to talk about the fate of progressive activism under the incoming Trump administration.