After releasing House of Bondage – a photography book that displayed what life was like in Apartheid South Africa – in 1967, photographer, Ernest Cole was exiled to the United States. There, he found that his experiences as a black man were not limited to his country, now living within a system that carried out a similar form of segregation. Directed by Raoul Peck, with narration by LaKeith Stanfield, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found lets us in on his feelings while living in exile, which eventually led to him giving up photography until he died in 1990. The documentary also brings us to 2017, when a number of Ernest Cole’s negatives were found in a Swedish bank vault, with no explanation as to how they got there.
I found the documentary to be deeply insightful. First, it’s a reminder of the connections between black people across continents of the injustices committed against them- injustices that, as the documentary touches on, are taking several generations to heal from. But I also found Cole’s life insightful because, through his journal notes, he gives voice to a feeling that I think a lot of marginalized people, artists, and people who happen to be both, experience. Cole expresses his lack of desire to keep ‘chronicling pain’, something it seemed he was expected to keep doing once House of Bondage was released. The expectation to re-subject oneself to trauma in the hopes of educating a wider audience is common for people in marginalized communities and can be a difficult spot to be in. Because, most times, also present with the discomfort is the desire to see the world change for the better.
Though he had faith that it would, Cole did not live to see South Africa turn or see the laws that effectively displaced him get revoked. Yet, his work lives on as reminders to prioritize humanity above anything else.
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is playing at TIFF ’24. For more information, click here.
