Movi Hub

Looking for Langston

1989

A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, with mourners gathered around a coffin. Downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, although when he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. His story and his visits to the jazz and dance club are framed by voices reading from the poetry and essays of Hughes and others. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.

5.0

Brother to Brother

2004

A drama that looks back on the Harlem Renaissance from the perspective of an elderly, black writer who meets a gay teenager in a New York homeless shelter.

0.0

The Strolling '20s

1966

Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier travel down memory lane to see what life was like back in the 1920s. Harry Belafonte introduces this musical, written by poet and playwright Langston Hughes, which pays tribute to Harlem in the 1920's. Sidney Poitier provides commentary on the era throughout the program, and George Kirby and Nipsey Russell portray various Harlem characters. Program highlights include: Gloria Lynne singing "Good Ol' Wagon"; Brownie McGhee singing "Let the Deal Go Down"; Diahann Carroll singing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"; Sammy Davis, Jr., singing and tap dancing to "Doin' the New Low Down"; Joe Williams singing "Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning"; and Duke Ellington performing "Sophisticated Lady" with a sextet.

0.0

Congo Cabaret

2018

Harlem, 1926. A “sweetman” Zeddy, living off a woman, brings a country girl he’s trying to impress to a gay-owned cabaret. There he meets a friend, Jake, whose girlfriend, Congo Rose, is the singer there. Drama swirls around the characters as Zeddy confronts the cabaret owner, about his sexuality. Congo Rose, seeking to reignite her man’s fading interest, puts on a performance, with her Pansy Dancer, of a Bessie Smith song that seduces the whole room, especially Zeddy.

0.0

Noble Sissle's Syncopated Ragtime

2018

Combining footage unseen since WWI with original scores from the era, this film tells the story of Noble Sissle's incredible journey that spans "The Harlem Hellfighters" of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural development.

6.3

Black and Tan

1929

Duke Ellington plays hot jazz in a fictional story that finds him down on his luck; he tries in vain to dissuade his friend, dancer Fredi Washington, from working with heart trouble even though it means work for his band. Sure enough, she collapses on stage...

10.0

HARLEM FRAGMENTS

Invalid Date

Harlem Fragments is an Afro-futurist scrapbook storytelling of a Harlem Black family's beautiful destruction during the 2008 recession. A natural disaster so mesmerizing you can't look away from the tragedy. Based on true events- The film explores the haunting societal pressures of achieving the Black American dream, told in the POV of 10 year old TJ revisiting his family's home that's up for sale. By empowering this Black boy in this film with the agency to imagine, TJ, through his own journey, finds a way to process and come to terms with his family's divorce. It's important for every Black child out there enduring the same foreign emotions to know that it's okay to feel them, and affirm that there is a future trajectory forward out of the initial destruction.

7.7

Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist

1998

A look at the confluence of the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and blacklists with the post-war activism by African Americans seeking more and better roles on radio, television, and stage. It begins in Harlem, measures the impact of Paul Robeson and the campaign to bring him down, looks at the role of HUAC, J. Edgar Hoover and of journalists such as Ed Sullivan, and ends with a tribute to Canada Lee. Throughout are interviews with men and women who were there, including Dick Campbell of the Rose McLendon Players and Fredrick O'Neal of the American Negro Theatre. In the 1940s and 1950s, anti-Communism was one more tool to maintain Jim Crow and to keep down African-Americans.

2.0

The Forever Tree

2017

In 1920, a young African-American woman sets off to Africa to find a tree that promises eternal life.

0.0

Black Is the Color: African-American Artists and Segregation

2016

Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.

3.2

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man, Celebrated Writer

2005

Ralph Ellison was an African-American writer and essayist, who's only novel Invisible Man (1953) gained a wide critical success. Ellison's ambitious journey from a childhood of hardship and poverty to celebrated African American writer is chronicled in this inspiring program through exclusive interviews and personal recollection.

0.0

Noble Sissle Jr.: Am I Still Going to Vietnam?

2018

The story of Noble Sissle Jr., a production company owner, community development expert, and veteran of the Vietnam War. Combining archival footage with interviews and family portraits, the film explores Sissle Jr.’s life, and the way he carries on the legacy of his father, Noble Sissle – the famous WWI Harlem Hell Fighter and leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Includes original music and footage of Noble Sissle.

0.0

The Last of the First

2004

The Harlem Blues & Jazz Band during its sunset years: 87-year-old Al Casey, who had worked closely with Fats Waller throughout the 1930s; guitarist Lawrence Lucie, 95 years young, from the bands of Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter and Duke Ellington; saxophonist Bubba Brooks, 79, who was with Bill Doggett; Edwin Swanston, 80, pianist with Louis Armstrong's Orchestra; 91-year-old drummer Johnny Blowers, ex-Bunny Berigan, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra; Ivan Rolle, 85, bassist with Jonah Jones; and 88-year-old Laurel Watson, one-time vocalist with Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Baron's cameras record the musicians through their tours and concerts, capturing their joy in performing together. A celebration of the jazz spirit.

0.0

Richard Wright: Native Son, Author and Activist

2009

RICHARD WRIGHT was an African-American author of novels, short stories and non-fiction that dealt with powerful themes and controversial topics. Much of his works concerned racial themes that helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century. Born on a plantation in Mississippi, Wright was a descendent of the first slaves who arrived in Jamestown Massachusetts. This program follows his arduous path from sharecropper to literary giant. Through authors like H.L. Menken, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, he discovered that literature could be used as a catalyst for social change. In 1937 Wright moved to New York and his work began to garner national attention for it's political and social commentary. Much of Wright's writing focused on the African American community and experience; his novel Native Son won him a Guggenheim Fellowship and was adapted to the Broadway stage with Orson Welles directing in 1941.

2.7

Savages: The Wolf's Tale

2022

Distant mountains, isolated shepherds, and a government determined to protect an invisible animal. But imposing an urban law in a rural environment will not be easy. In the north of Spain, a group of cattle ranchers declare rebellion and opt for self-government. In the crossfire: photographers, forest rangers and naturalists. "Salvajes" shows the most western Spain in a frenetic story of characters where morality and damage depend on which side of the valley you ask the question.

0.0

Ovvi destini

2019

Three sisters. Laura, the eldest; Lucia, the middle one; Costanza, the younger. Costanza is wheelchair bound because of an accident caused by Laura. Costanza and Lucia are not aware of Laura's responsibility, but a strange being is: Carlo, who starts blackmailing Laura.

0.0

Comment j'ai décidé... de vivre

2021

This short film is based on the characters of the film "Comment je me suis disputé...ma vie sexuelle" by Arnaud Desplechin released in 1996. We follow Sylvia, about ten years after the end of the film. Sylvia loves Paul and Nathan. And vice versa, they both love Sylvia.

Genre	Drama, Music
Production Companies	Herald Pictures, Lincoln Productions Company
Production Ccountries	United States of America

Harlem Is Heaven

Related Movie

Looking for Langston

Brother to Brother

The Strolling '20s

Congo Cabaret

Noble Sissle's Syncopated Ragtime

Black and Tan

HARLEM FRAGMENTS

Scandalize My Name: Stories from the Blacklist

The Forever Tree

Black Is the Color: African-American Artists and Segregation

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man, Celebrated Writer

Noble Sissle Jr.: Am I Still Going to Vietnam?

The Last of the First

Richard Wright: Native Son, Author and Activist

Savages: The Wolf's Tale

Ovvi destini

Comment j'ai décidé... de vivre