Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) tells the story of South African photographer Ernest Cole, who captured some of the most vivid and compelling images of the apartheid regime. Cole’s work — smuggled out of the country and published in book form as House of Bondage — did much to stir the conscience of the outside world. But his celebrity made his position untenable in his homeland, and he lived in unhappy exile in the USA from the late 1960s, where his career and life slowly unraveled. Yet in 2016, long after his early death, a treasure trove of 60,000 negatives turned up mysteriously in a safety deposit box in Sweden — a revelation on a par with the Vivian Mayer find.

Pulling from this new archive, from Cole’s often poetic diaries and interviews, as well as the reflections of friends and family, Peck delivers a rich, insightful and empathetic portrait of a Black artist ripe for rediscovery.

Like Cole’s photographs, in just about every frame of the documentary, there’s more to see in Peck’s telling. This combination of the aesthetically rich and the politically nuanced sets the film apart. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found truly is a treasure beyond the images that miraculously survived, and none is better equipped to tell this complex yet revealing story than Peck himself.

Jason Gorber, POV magazine

Deeply moving… propulsive and weighty.

Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

Watching Lost and Found, you’re moved by a life that veered into tragedy, yet the place it lands lifts you up. More than a great photographer, Ernest Cole captured something essential. By the end you feel the ghost is speaking to you.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety