Raoul Peck’s South African-focused documentary “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” To Screen At Visions du Réel Festival 

Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s latest documentary Ernest Cole: Lost and Found will be screened at the 56th edition of Visions du Réel documentary festival in Switzerland, scheduled for 4th – 13th April, 2025.

The filmmaker will be welcomed as a Guest Of Honor at the Swiss festival where he will deliver a masterclass and present a retrospective of his four-decade career. His latest work, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, which premiered at Cannes in 2024, is a documentary based on South African photographer Ernest Cole who unveiled the horrors of Apartheid through his powerful 1967 book House of Bondage.

In this documentary, Peck puts the South African photographer in charge of his own story. Though the filmmaker does not use the exact words of Cole, he masterfully combines criticisms and poetry found in the prose of House of Bondage with observations made from the testimonies of his people who knew him. The internal monologue of the documentary is provided by American actor LaKeith Stanfield. Navigating the dilemma between the filmmaker’s and the photographer’s lenses, Peck interweaves commentary with his personal understanding of the isolation and disorientation that comes with being alienated from one’s homeland.

House of Bondage, published in 1967, brought Cole unprecedented fame, with the work exploring the brutality and injustice of Apartheid to the world while examining the everyday life of South Africa’s Black population. However, due to how politically scathing the work was, Cole persona was forced to leave South Africa on exile in the United States.

Raoul Peck is known for his Oscar-nominated work I am Not Your Negro, a documentary film that is contrived from James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House. The film offers a provocative snapshot of James Baldwin’s keen observations on racial relations in America. Following its 2017 Oscar recognition, the film won the Toronto Film Festival People’s Choice Award and the Audience Award at the Berlinale.

From his initial focus on Haitian politics to the extensive coverage of African resistance and liberation struggles, Peck has created for himself a unique cinema environment where he often blends personal history with unwavering assessments of global power dynamics. His complex body of work comprises features such as The Man By The Shore (Competition, Cannes 1993) and Lumumba (Director’s Fortnight, Cannes 2000, HBO); and docufilms such as Death of a Prophet, and Fatal Assistance (Berlinale and Hot Docs 2013).

From 1995 to 1997, Peck served as Minister of Culture for the Republic of Haiti. He has also served as jury member of international film festivals such as Cannes, Berlinale, Sundance and Tribeca.

The official schedule for the 56th edition of Visions du Réel will be out on 12th March, a month ahead of the week-long festival.