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World premiere: Digging for Weldon Irvine (15*) + ScreenTalk with director Victorious De Costa

Part of Doc'n Roll Film Festival

Weldon Irvine in an orange and white patterned shirt

Director Victorious DeCosta brings a timely examination of the life and legacy of Weldon Irvine: the prolific musician-composer-playwright.

Langston Hughes’ cautionary prose has been the stimulus for seminal artistic offerings of the 20th century. Chiefly among them, the civil rights anthem Young, Gifted and Black, written by Irvine. 

In the wake of his untimely death, this focussed, contemporary reflection upon his life explores the enduring legacy of a man vital to the culture of black freedom expression, yet is somehow overlooked within that very lexicon.

Irvine's bountiful, socio-culturally evocative work in music and theatre was central to the Black Arts Movement of the 1970s; integral to the evolution of hip hop, from its inception through its golden era of consciousness and jazz-laden sampling; and whose dedicated mentorship sparked a movement in his long-time residence of Jamaica/St Albans, Queens, helping develop some of the most well-known figures in jazz today.

 

Tagged with: Cinema Doc n Roll 2019

US 2019 Dir Victorious De Costa 111 min

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Barbican Cinema 2