Harry Belafonte Season at BFI Southbank

Harry Belafonte: Movies, Race, Defiance @British Film Institute

This African Odysseys season celebrates the life and work of the legendary actor, singer, producer and activist.

Across a 70-year career in film, Harry Belafonte’s slate as an actor, compared to fellow trailblazer Sidney Poitier, was significantly less prolific. Yet his balancing of the roles of artist and activist, across show business and campaigning, is unmatched in Hollywood. His was a lifetime of righteous fervour and his epochal struggles for freedom, democracy and equality (against fascism, racial apartheid, McCarthyism, nuclear war, guns and more) are epitomised by the prominent place he held in the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. In his rear-view, he saw his mentor Paul Robeson squeezed into penury and illness for his radical stances by vengeful and hostile government forces. But he forged on with ‘fierce optimism’. He had the bulwark of wealth as a successful singer. His film work was independent-minded and uncompromising. He believed that good art always served ideas that challenged the status quo, and with maverick directors, including Preminger, Wise, Altman and Lee, he bore this out.

Burt Caesar, season curator

Presented by African Odysseys

Saturday 16 December 2023 15:00
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Sunday 10 December 2023 18:20
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Thursday 14 December 2023 18:00
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Friday 22 December 2023 20:20
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Saturday 23 December 2023 15:50
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Wednesday 27 December 2023 20:40
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Thursday 28 December 2023 17:50
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Saturday 02 December 2023 18:10
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Tuesday 05 December 2023 20:45
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Saturday 09 December 2023 15:20
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Saturday 09 December 2023 18:10
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Thursday 14 December 2023 20:45
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Tuesday 19 December 2023 20:45
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Wednesday 20 December 2023 20:50
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Friday 22 December 2023 18:00
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Saturday 02 December 2023 14:00
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Sunday 17 December 2023 18:20
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