Ernest Cole in “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”, screening at the Wexner Center for the Arts at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday. Credit: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
South African photographer Ernest Cole dedicated his life to capturing the world through his camera lens. Now, filmmaker Raoul Peck is turning the focus on him.
Saturday, Peck’s one-hour-and-45-minute documentary, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” — which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival May 20, 2024 — will be screened by the Wexner Center for the Arts at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. According to the center’s website, Jared Thorne, associate professor and head of the photography area in the Department of Art, will also lead a discussion on Cole’s life and work at 5:45 p.m.
According to the documentary’s website, Cole was best known for documenting the unjust treatment of Black South African citizens under apartheid. In 1966, he fled to the United States, later publishing his photography book “House of Bondage” in 1967. The book has since been banned in South Africa for its content.
In 2017, more than 60,000 of Cole’s lost film negatives were found in Stockholm, Sweden. They revealed more details about his time under South Africa’s apartheid regime and in the United States during the Civil Rights era, following his 1996 exile. According to the Wexner Center’s website, these photos make up “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” which won the L’Oeil d’Or prize for best documentary at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Thorne — a photographer who taught college-level photography in South Africa from 2010-15 — was an ideal choice for Saturday’s speaker, said David Filipi, head of film and video at the Wexner Center.
“Giving it that extra campus connection is always a nice addition to the events that we do,” Filipi said. “When you have someone that’s the perfect person to come and talk about it — I know he’ll have a lot to say about the subject, his own personal experience to reflect on — it was kind of an easy decision.”
Thorne said the documentary stands out for its portrayal of Cole’s struggles in exile, told through his own words and photographs.
“He’s in these two worlds, and neither of them are really what he wants,” Thorne said. “It’s such an interesting tale, but one of woe. What Peck does so well is that he lets Cole tell his story. It’s not some guy at Princeton who specializes in apartheid or South African studies. It’s Cole, reading from his diary.”
Thorne said leaving one’s home is never an easy decision, and he hopes the film showcases the deep-seated struggle that accompanies such a choice.
“I think maybe when people see the film, they’ll just recognize what it takes to uproot oneself, uproot one’s identity,” Thorne said. “It’s not a happy story. The story is one of not fitting in, of being clearly talented — he has one of the more renowned photo books ever created — but can’t find it again because he’s not home. He’s in exile.”
Even decades later, Filipi said the importance of Cole’s story endures.
“I hope it causes people to reflect on what’s going on in the world right now,” Filipi said. “It probably seems like a long time ago — to me, I mean, in my lifetime, this brutal governmental regime was in place. There are still situations like that around the world today. Art can call attention to that in a very effective way.”
Tickets for Saturday’s showings and discussion cost $5 for college students, $8 for Wexner Center members and adults 55 years and over and $10 for the general public.
For more information, including how to purchase tickets online, visit the center’s website.
