Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask

The Life and Work of Philosopher Frantz Fanon

This documentary was the first film to explore Frantz Fanon, the pre-eminent theorist of the anti-colonial movements of this century. Fanon's two major works, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, were pioneering studies of the psychological impact of racism on both colonized and colonizer. This innovative film biography restores Fanon to his rightful place at the center of contemporary discussions around post-colonial identity.

Director Isaac Julien integrates the facts of Fanon's brief but remarkably eventful life with his long and tortuous inner journey. Julien elegantly weaves together interviews with family members and friends, documentary footage, readings from Fanon's work and dramatizations of crucial moments in Fanon's life. Cultural critics Stuart Hall and Francoise Verges position Fanon's work in his own time and draw out its implications for our own.

Winner of the Certificate of Merit at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Official Selection at the Berlin International Film Festival.