54 years ago, film director William Greaves filmed a four hour meeting of artists and writers who had been part of the Harlem Renaissance. Now his son David has restored the footage and assembled a remarkable must-see documentary. It is being screened at Film at Lincoln Center beginning October 16 and will begin a run the same day at Manhattan’s Film Forum. Go here or here for showtimes and ticket information.

William Greaves became a documentary filmmaker after becoming unhappy with the roles he was getting as an actor. (He studied at the Actor Studio along with Shelley Winters and Marlon Brando.) After several years producing the “Black Journal” show for PBS he directed over 100 documentaries in a career of over forty years. Many of these were about black American history but he also made experimental films like his two “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” docs.

In 1972 Greaves invited a roster of artists, writers, poets and musicians associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and ’30s to an event held in Harlem at the home of Duke Ellington. (Ellington was sick during the shoot and does not appear in the film.) Many of the participants had not seen each other in years. They included the painter Aaron Douglas; artist and writer Richard Bruce Nugent; poet Arna Bontemps; musicians Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle; the photographer James Van Der Zee; librarian Regina Andrews; artist Romare Bearden; historian Nathan Huggins; Harlem bookstore owner Richard B. Moore; Ida Mae Cullen, the widow of Countee Cullen and many more.

Greaves and a small crew of filmmakers (including his son David) recorded the guests drinking punch and wine and discussing the meaning of that unique cultural and political movement. Over the next four decades William returned to the film many times but was never able to sell it. He died in 2014. His son David (who worked with his dad for many years) was able to get funding, restored the footage, had it re-edited and it has received universal acclaim. (See the plaudits in the film’s trailer below.)

The filmmakers are seen tapping the microphones (for synching later) and this becomes almost like chapter marks for the event. Greaves sometimes gently corrals people together to discuss a particular aspect of the Harlem Renaissance. Most of the guests are in their 60s to 90s including 96-year-old Leigh Whipper who began acting in the 1920s and created the Negro Actors Guild of America. There is discussion of the fear that young black New Yorkers may not know the history of the Harlem Renaissance. Should we continue to call ourselves “negroes” or adopt the new term “Afro-American,” one man asks. They also discuss members of the movement who have died: Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, Zora Neale Hurston and Augusta Savage. The filmmakers insert archival footage as dates and events are recalled; the doc serves as a unique and highly entertaining introduction to the importance of those years in black American cultural history. At one point Nathan Huggins says “The Harlem Renaissance isn’t dead, because the Harlem Renaissance lives with everybody.” And this great film will certainly amplify that deserved presence.