Seven Songs for Malcolm X

The Black Audio Film Collective’s seventh film envisioned the death and life of the African American revolutionary as a seven part study in iconography as narrated by novelist Toni Cade Bambara and actor Giancarlo Espesito. The stylized tableaux vivants that memorialise Malcolm’s life referenced the early 20th century funeral photography of James Van der Zee’s The Harlem Book of the Dead and the elemental static cinematography of Sergei Paradjanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates.

Cast

Darrick Harris

Malcolm X

Danny Carter

Malcolm's Man

Martin Boothe

Malcolm's Man

Byron O. Hurlock

Malcolm's Man

Edward George

Malcolm's Man

Tricia Rose

Malcolm's Mother

Theodore L. Cash

Malcolm's Father

Olamide Faison

Young Malcolm

Giancarlo Esposito

Autobiography Reading (voice)

Toni Cade Bambara

Commentary (voice)