theartsdesk Q&A: Raoul Peck, director of the documentary 'Ernest Cole: Lost and Found'

With his furious docu-essay I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck caused a stir in 2016. The film about African-American writer James Baldwin and the Civil Rights Movement not only put the Haitian-born Peck on the map as a director, but also made him one of the defining figures of contemporary black cinema.

Since his debut Haitian Corner (1990), Peck has devoted himself to political topics, switching effortlessly between documentary or feature films to achieve a stronger factual or emotional impact. His work, he says, only serves one purpose: "I need to find a narrative, something that lasts and stands the test of time."

His latest film centres on a black South African chronicler of the apartheid era, Ernest Cole, who died in New York in 1990 aged 49. Cole became famous with his 1967 photo book House of Bondage, which truthfully documented the effects of racism and racial segregation in the everyday lives of black people in his home country. He went into exile in America in 1966 so that he could publish the book.

In 2017, a collection of Cole's works was found in a bank safe-deposit box in Sweden: 60,000 negatives, photographs thought lost, that he had taken during a trip through the southern United States and in Europe before disappearing into the shadows of society, impoverished and homeless for several years. In Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, Peck uses these black-and-white images, as well as excerpts from Cole's notes and archive material, to reconstruct the artist's creative development and his increasing feelings of despair.

In between the lines and the breathtaking photography, the film reveals the pain, marginalisation, and racism that Cole experienced in exile. It's something that Peck could easily relate to, his own family having fled Haiti for Congo when he was eight. As a young man, he studied in Germany, France, and America. In a one-on-one interview he gave at last year's Cannes Film Festival, Peck, who is now 71, talked about Cole's significance, his approach to filmmaking, and why he chose to become a director instead of pursuing a career in politics.  

PAMELA JAHN: When did you first come across Ernest Cole's work?

RAOUL PECK: Unknowingly, during my time as a student in Berlin. The mood, the whole atmosphere in the city was very political on both sides of the wall. Various freedom movements were based in the divided city, from Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, and Mozambique. We used Ernest Cole's photographs at demonstrations for leaflets and on posters. We didn't know his name, but for the first time we had real pictures of what was happening in South Africa, because there was censorship in the country itself. It was only many years later when I saw his book House of Bondage, that I realised who was behind the photos.

Cole said that he didn't want to be a "chronicler of misery'", as he was often described. What do you see in his photographs when you look at them?

What I see in them now is different to when I discovered them for the first time. From the point that I decided to make the film, my perspective changed. I was trying to decipher the person behind the camera, to see what transpired from those pictures that would tell me something about himself, his personality, his thoughts. Of course, I admire those photos. But the closer you look at them, you more you learn to read a certain dramatic arc. You start to ask yourself: What is his syntax, his vocabulary? In fact, it's partly a detective story-like process and partly an artistic endeavour.

In what way?

I'm taking responsibility to make choices. I didn't have a precise agenda when I started working on the project besides hoping to find the best photographs that would help me tell the story. I was trying to find out what his motive was, or the justification of certain images. Why did he visit the rest of America when it was not an assignment? It's a back-and-forth process of question and answer between myself and the images.

Did you start an internal conversation with him about which photos he would have chosen himself in the film?

The contact sheets tell you a story, especially those where he put red marks on them. They show why he chose a particular photo, and then you can analyse the other pictures on the sheet. You can see what was wrong for him, why he didn't pick any of those. It's fairly obvious. It's not a coincidence. When you make a decision, you know you choose the perfect one.

What makes you so certain about that?

I've been a photographer myself. I can remember my own process. I know what it means to roam streets day and night in the hope that, on your contact sheet, you will have two or three pictures that are great. I know how much patience that requires. I know what it means to stand in a corner waiting for something to happen. It's like playing the lottery. Will it happen? I see the light, the decor, but what I need is one person crossing that way. Not too early, not too soon, hoping the sun will stay. All those scenarios are very familiar to me.

What's the secret power that lies in photographic images as opposed to moving images?

It's two different fields. I've started my career by using photos to tell stories. One of my major inspirations was Chris Marker. I learned with his films that you can tell a story with 10 or 17 photographs. The German filmmaker Alexander Kluge was another influential figure. I admire his work. That's my school. My student films are all based on archival photos. It's how I've learned my craft, the deciphering, the dialogue, everything. 

Does your process change when you compose a film from photographs, as in Cole's case, or by using a text as the foundation, as you did in I Am Not Your Negro?

It's never linear. No image is right or wrong, if you want to make a certain point. It always comes down to choosing the material that best serves the purpose. Sometimes it's better to do the contrary. Sometimes you do something that provokes. In my documentary miniseries Exterminate All the Brutes (2021), about the legacy of European colonialism and genocide, I used this famous image of Hitler's villa, where he is playing with his dog and his mistress, Eva Braun, smiling to the camera. And I put reggae on it. I knew it was almost a sacrilege, but the impact was incredible. That's the way I experiment with image and sound and noise and text. Nothing I use in my films is innocent for me.

In most of your work, you look at the past to retell other people's stories. Yet your films feel very contemporary.

They have to. I feel it's my obligation to make sure that the past is transported to the present. I also have a responsibility in preserving those images before they disappear. It's a mix. But the key is that I understand my work as a political engagement. That's why I came to filmmaking in the first place. I started in politics when I was 17. I went to film school at 46. So, by that time, I knew why I took this path. I wanted to do it differently than my peers who shot military films. Politics is not about convincing the people who are already on your side. You have to go where everybody else is. You have to open the eyes and hearts and minds of those folks that probably would not have access to those stories otherwise. You have to reach those people.

What have you learned from the various politicians, thinkers, and artists you've portrayed in your films, like Karl Marx, James Baldwin, and Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of independent Congo?

James Baldwin educated me. He is an elder for me. I got key advice from him through his books. Most importantly, I understood the importance of not allowing anybody to determine who you are. I remember this every day in my life when making certain decisions. I've never accepted being called either a documentarian or narrative filmmaker. I worked in TV and cinema, I made short films, feature films, documentaries. I adapt, I respect the genres, but I make the film I need to make.

Do you feel a similar kindship to Cole?

Cole is more somebody I can relate to. He could have been my contemporary. Today, he would be older than me but, still, I understand his trajectory, and I respect his work. I hope my film will be able to survive the test of time, just like his photographs have.

Has your own experience living in exile changed the way you look at the world and your own country's past?

I always recommend any person I meet to travel because, once you leave your country, you have a totally different point of view. Usually, that helps you understand your own country better. In fact, I never say that I was in exile exactly because I was not the one taking the decision. It was my parents' choice. And during all my time abroad, I kept contact with the Haitian community. But I understand what it means to live in exile and how hard it can be. I saw people commit suicide because they could not cope with it. In one of my films, Haitian Corner, there is a guy who almost every week packs his suitcase, convinced that he'd be going back, yet he never does.

Where do you feel home?

Wherever I have roots, wherever I am or was fighting, whether it's Congo, the US, Germany. My work speaks of that. Of course, there are some emotional anchors. Haiti is never very far, and it is probably the only place where nobody can tell me to go home. But now that I am older, I feel like I want to be in a place where I can stay and live in peace. Everything becomes clearer that there is a place that you call "home", even though you feel you belong everywhere.

• All photograph above were taken by Ernest Cole in South Africa and the USA. Courtesy of Magnum Photos.
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