Once Upon a Time in Harlem

About this event

Dir. William Greaves, David Greaves. 2026, 100 mins. U.S. DCP. This breathtaking miracle of a movie is the finally realized, posthumous passion project of legendary filmmaker William Greaves, an intimate chronicle of the people, culture, and meaning of the Harlem Renaissance of the early 20th century. In 1972, Greaves—best known today as the director of the beloved meta-documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and director-producer of the groundbreaking TV program Black Journal—threw a party in Duke Ellington’s apartment, gathering an extraordinary group of artists, writers, poets, actors, musicians, and thinkers who were part of that singularly fecund period of American history. With loose-limbed camerawork that captures such hallowed figures as Richard Bruce Nugent, Aaron Douglas, Arna Bontemps, James Van Der Zee, and other legends in astonishingly beautiful color footage, Greaves created a living, breathing, one-of-a-kind document never seen by audiences in Greaves’s lifetime, but now completed by the filmmaker’s son, David Greaves. Once Upon a Time in Harlem is at once a portrait of a community of the 1920s and the changing sociopolitical tides of the 1970s, and a centenary celebration of the highest order. A NEON release. Tickets: $35 / discounted for MoMI and NYFF members ($30). There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.

Description from movingimage.org