As the world marks the 100th anniversary of Malcolm X\u2019s birth this year, a new film series at Anthology Film Archives asks: What have we forgotten about one of the most photographed and misrepresented political figures of the 20th century?<\/p>\n
The series, \u201cMalcolm X: Multidimensional<\/a>,\u201d which opened Thursday and runs through Sept. 21, presents a deeper and more expansive portrait of the Black leader than the more familiar images in his autobiography and its 1992 film adaptation by Spike Lee.<\/p>\n The series was assembled by Yasmina Price, a New York-based cultural critic and film scholar. Price said she aimed to curate a wide-ranging lineup of documentaries, experimental films, newsreels, and public television shows that, taken together, frame Malcolm X not just as a civil rights icon but as the global thinker, media strategist and committed international rights champion that he became.<\/p>\n \u201c[Malcolm X]\u2019s entire life and the long arc of both mourning and upholding his legacy has been one of misremembrance,\u201d Price said. \u201cThe last lines of the autobiography are him saying, \u2018I already know what the white press is going to do to me. They\u2019re going to demonize me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The series is one of several NYC events tied to Malcolm X\u2019s centennial. On Friday, the Shabazz Center \u2014 located in the former Audubon Ballroom, where X was assassinated 60 years ago \u2014 will host a rare public tour and arts event<\/a> featuring a video essay screening and concert by jazz titans Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, a walking tour in East Elmhurst spotlighted the Queens home where Malcolm X and his family lived, and where they survived a firebomb attack<\/a> just days before his murder.<\/p>\n The film series includes rarely seen works by Black documentarians like Madeline Anderson<\/a> and William Greaves<\/a>, experimental shorts, and footage from long-running but lesser-known programs like \u201cBlack Journal,\u201d the Emmy award-winning WNET show about Black life that sprang out of a Black-centric documentary<\/a> on the 1967 Newark riots.<\/p>\n The series is organized into 11 thematic programs, including one on Black television, one about popular representations of Malcolm as the polar opposite to Martin Luther King Jr., and one revisiting Malcolm X\u2019s alignment with anticolonial movements in the Palestinian territories, Algeria and Vietnam.<\/p>\n