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00:00I'm Matt Carey, documentary editor at Deadline, and welcome to the Deadline studio at the
00:15Toronto International Film Festival. One of the most remarkable films that is playing
00:19here is Ernest Cole, Lost and Found, and we are joined by the film's director, the Oscar-nominated
00:25filmmaker Raoul Peck. Thank you so much for being with us.
00:28Well, thank you.
00:29For those who don't know Ernest Cole, tell us about him, the South African photographer
00:35who was driven into exile in the United States.
00:38Well, he was one of the first ones to really document the apartheid in image, going places
00:46where no other photographer could go. And then he had, of course, to leave South Africa
00:52and came to New York and tried to start a new life in exile.
00:58House of Bondage was the only book of his photographs published during his life. This
01:03came out in the 1960s and, again, documented.
01:06Yes, House of Bondage.
01:07I'm sorry, House of Bondage.
01:09Yes, it's an iconic book even today by today's standards, and it's a book that will stay
01:16forever as the real document of the apartheid and what it means to live under apartheid.
01:23You were born in Haiti, but as a young man, were studying in Berlin and became involved
01:28in the anti-apartheid movement there. So did you know his work at that point, or when did
01:33you discover him?
01:34I did know some of his pictures because we used to use them to document what was happening
01:41there. We used them at demonstrations, et cetera. But I didn't identify him, especially
01:47in that era. It was about the fight. It was not about art. It was not about photography
01:53per se. But later on, I learned to know exactly who he was.
01:59What did he capture about the reality of existence for people like him, black people in South
02:06Africa? It was clearly a view that white South Africans, or the dominant minority in control
02:14of that country, did not want to see.
02:16Well, they didn't have to see because it was normal for them. And I think even somebody
02:23like him was not seen as such. And don't forget, in the 60s, a black photographer, even in
02:29the US, basically did not exist. They were there. They were photographing, but they never
02:37were recognized. So imagine in South Africa.
02:41Yes, exactly. And remarkably, your film, so much of it is based on 60,000 negatives that
02:49were found in Sweden, I believe, decades after, or they were discovered, or the family learned
02:56about them decades after his passing. What is the story behind those? I guess there's
03:01some mystery still about who kept them, how they reemerged.
03:05Well, it's not a mystery for us, for the family and myself. We know now what the story
03:12is. But I didn't want to include it really in the film, because I wanted the film to
03:18be Ernest Coles telling his story. The fact that 60,000 of his pictures and negatives
03:26were in a bank vault in Sweden, discovered, quote unquote, in 2017, just say something
03:36about how the work of such an iconic photograph was respected or not. They probably thought
03:43that the family would forget about them at some time, and the work could be recuperated.
03:48As many African art have been, along the centuries, either stolen or not returned.
03:57So I didn't want to make it the center of the film. For me, it was about Ernest Cole
04:04telling his own story, and launch his career again somehow.
04:10An important part of the film is his life, his time, very difficult time in the United
04:14States. You use his words as you say, so it's a very intimate and personal account.
04:23At that time, maybe still today, we see a pushback, for instance, to critical race theory.
04:30Any time an image of the United States is presented to itself, there's going to be
04:34rejection of it. His photographs were not embraced or really seen, even though he was
04:39documenting something not so different from apartheid in South Africa.
04:44Well, I'm not going even in the discussion of a critical race theory. I mean, for me,
04:50it's over. And if ignorance still wants to bring that on the forward, that's their problem.
04:58But for us, it's to bring again all those works from not only photograph, but artists,
05:07filmmakers sometimes, that the wider audience never had a chance to see. And also,
05:15for today's artists to be able to see history from their own eyes, and give to see what has
05:24been hidden, give to narrate what was never narrated. So that's what that work is about,
05:33and that's what Ernest Cole, as well, is about.
05:36In your extraordinary film, I Am Not Your Negro, Samuel L. Jackson provided the voice of James
05:42Baldwin. Here, it's Lakeith Stanfield, who is voicing the words of Ernest Cole, and remarkably
05:49so. How did you connect with Lakeith and decide to use his voice?
05:54Well, very simple. I knew that I needed somebody who will not only impersonate,
06:00but really embodied Ernest Cole. As I did for I Am Not Your Negro, I needed an actor to be
06:11a character, not to play or not to narrate. So that means Lakeith was extraordinary. His voice,
06:19his demeanor, the way he felt the words of Ernest Cole were exactly what I was looking for.
06:29He, I didn't want this neutral voice, like you would use in any other narration. That's not
06:36what I wanted. An actor embodied a character, and being him at every moment of the film,
06:45depending on the emotions that he has to channel, or the mood, or the intensity,
06:53and only a great actor can really do that the way I needed it.
06:58The film world premiered at Cannes, and you went on to win the Loire d'Or prize, which is the top
07:03prize for documentary there. Now, to bring it to Canada and TIFF, another of the world's great film
07:09festivals, you premiered I Am Not Your Negro here. What is it like to be back in Toronto?
07:14Well, Toronto, I feel at home, because I've, you know, since I used to come to Toronto when
07:21Planet Africa existed, and Cameron Bailey was the director of Planet Africa. So it's been a while,
07:29and it's a very peculiar audience, and for I Am Not Your Negro, it was important for me that
07:36all the distributors watch the film with an audience, because I knew that audience will react
07:43the way it did. So I didn't show the film to anybody before that particular premiere in
07:49Toronto. So TIFF is really an important place, and its audience is known by filmmakers to love
07:58films, and also the lack of this competition aspect that you have in other festivals.
08:06I think it's important for our work, because we are not competing against each other.
08:11Your most recent film, I should say, Silver Dollar Road, was with Amazon, MGM Studios.
08:19This film has distribution as well. When are people going to get to see it outside
08:23the context of a film festival?
08:25Well, I'm not the one to announce it, but I know that it will be distributed soon in the coming
08:31months, I think. Magnolia are the distributor. They are the one who distributed I Am Not Your
08:37Negro as well, and it's a great team, and I enjoy really working with them, and I'm looking forward
08:44for the U.S. opening and Canada opening as well.
08:47And it must be a great sense of privilege, I guess, and responsibility to reintroduce to so
08:54many people Ernest Cole and many people who will not have heard of him, and why, again,
09:00that that is important to you. People need to know who he was.
09:04Well, it's not only him. It's about the whole history he's bringing with him. It's about
09:11what is South Africa today as well. The film is not dealing with the past. It's about what can
09:18Ernest Cole tell us about today? What is his analysis of South Africa? What does he say
09:26about New York, the U.S., the South of America, where he spent some time as well?
09:33And he was able to analyze all that in his work, and that work still questions us today,
09:40and that's what the film is about.
09:42Thank you so much. Raoul Peck, the director of Ernest Cole Lost and Found. It's been great
09:46talking with you. Thank you so much for being in the Deadline studio with us.
09:50Thank you for inviting me.