Seven Songs for Malcolm X

Synopsis

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.

Top cast

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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

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Theodore L. Cash

Malcolm's Father

Olamide Faison

Young Malcolm

Giancarlo Esposito

Autobiography Reading (voice)

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Toni Cade Bambara

Commentary (voice)