Film
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
- Director
- Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
- Certificate
- 12A
- Running Time
- 120 mins
Compiled by her friend and photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, this intimate portrait of the late, great American writer who bagged both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom was completed just a few months before her death in 2019. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio to ‘70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history and the human condition as seen through the prism of her own literature.
Inspired to write because no one took a “little black girl” seriously, Morrison reflects on her lifelong deconstruction of the master narrative. Woven together with a rich collection of art, history, literature and personality, the film includes discussions about her many critically acclaimed works, including novels The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon, her role as an editor of iconic African-American literature and her time teaching at Princeton University.
The Watershed’s 2:30pm screening on Sunday 22 March is followed by a panel discussion with writer, historian and programmer Dr Edson Burton; Madhu Krishnan, Professor of African, World and Comparative Literatures, University of Bristol; and Sharmaine Lovegrove, Publisher at Dialogue Books.
is needed now More than ever
Pic credit: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
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