One night in 1972, a pioneering documentarian invited artists and intellectuals to a dinner party.
His aim was to film their reflections on the Harlem Renaissance — a cultural movement they had helped to create half a century earlier, when Harlem was the scene of an explosion of art, music and literature celebrating African American heritage. William Greaves' project was never finished, and the footage was largely unseen until now.
Following Greaves' death, his son David and granddaughter Liani made it their mission to bring the project to the big screen. The result is "Once Upon a Time in Harlem," and it premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. David and Liani Greaves speak to Michel Martin about the importance of this phenomenal period in American cultural history.
