Seven Songs for Malcolm X
Documentary
Release Date
October 1, 1993
Duration
52 min
Status
Released
Language
en
Overview
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.
Casts
Malcolm X
Darrick Harris
Malcolm's Man
Danny Carter
Malcolm's Man
Martin Boothe
Malcolm's Man
Byron O. Hurlock
Malcolm's Man
Edward George
Malcolm's Mother
Tricia Rose
Malcolm's Father
Theodore L. Cash
Young Malcolm
Olamide Faison
Autobiography Reading (voice)
Giancarlo Esposito
Commentary (voice)
Toni Cade Bambara
FBI Files Reading (as Coco Fusco)
Coco Fusco
Girl
Tiffany Nelson
Girl
Tiffany Tate
(as Wilfred Little)
Wilfred X
Betty Shabazz
Spike Lee
Greg Tate
Hassan El-Sayeed
Yuri Kochiyama
Thulani Davis
(as Robin Kelley)
Robin D.G. Kelley
Patricia Williams
William Kunstler
(as Iman Benjamin Karim)
Benjamin 2X
John Henrik Clarke
Peter Goldman
James Farmer
Jan Carew
Malcolm 'Shorty' Jarvis
Peter Bailey