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Behind the scenes of Atlanta filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper\u2019s Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage. (Courtesy of Coffee Bluff Pictures.)<\/p>\nAtlanta filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper named her production company, Coffee Bluff Pictures, after a place many people don\u2019t know, a small enclave in Savannah, Georgia, historically settled by formerly enslaved families. The name is a reminder, Draper says, of who she is and to whom she is accountable: the communities whose stories she carries to the screen.<\/p>\n
Behind the scenes of Atlanta filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper\u2019s Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage. (Courtesy of Coffee Bluff Pictures.)<\/p>\n
That accountability shapes every project she takes on as a filmmaker. It runs visibly through her new documentary, Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage, the first feature-length film ever made about the artist, which Draper screened at the Cannes March\u00e9 du Film this past May. Bearden spent his life insisting that Black people, rather than outside institutions, should be the ones documenting and telling stories of Black life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage<\/a> insists on the same thing.<\/p>\n \u201cRomare Bearden has always been ahead of us,\u201d Draper says. \u201cWhat feels urgent now is that the culture has finally caught up to the questions he was asking \u2014 about place, identity, ritual, and what it means to construct a self from complex, multiple histories and lived experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was challenging who gets to interpret culture, who gets centered, and who gets written out. That is not history. That is now.\u201d<\/p>\n Deborah Riley Draper<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Why Romare Bearden, and why now?<\/p>\n Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 2, 1911. His family migrated to Harlem, where their home drew artists and intellectuals. He became a painter, a collagist, a muralist, and co-founded the Cinque Gallery <\/a>to support Black artists locked out of the mainstream art world. He died in 1988, yet his work has never stopped being contemporary.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1969, [Bearden] led the protest against the Met for mounting an exhibition about Harlem without involving Harlem \u2014 without Black artists, without Black curators,\u201d Draper explains. \u201cHe was challenging who gets to interpret culture, who gets centered, and who gets written out. That is not history. That is now.\u201d<\/p>\n Draper crafted Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage to move the way Bearden worked \u2014 through juxtaposition, fragmentation, and accumulation. Archival footage sits alongside contemporary voices. Fragments of paintings open into memory. Rare audio of Bearden himself serves as the film\u2019s narration, guiding viewers through his life and work.<\/p>\n \u201cMeaning is accumulated, not dictated,\u201d Draper says. \u201cThe audience is invited to participate in that construction \u2026 to make connections, to sit inside the gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the film\u2019s most extraordinary assets: never-before-seen footage of Bearden in conversation with James Baldwin and Alvin Ailey.<\/p>\n Read More: <\/strong> \u201cWhat emerges is a living ecosystem of Black intellect, experience, and artistry,\u201d Draper says. \u201cThey are challenging each other, sharpening ideas in real time. That footage shifts the scale of the film.\u201d<\/p>\n What comes next for the film?<\/p>\n Executive producers include NBA Hall of Famer Grant Hill and veteran chief marketing officer Kimberly Evans Paige, as well as Jocelyn Moore, Robin Lyon, and Alva Greenberg. Draper is currently finalizing a festival and distribution strategy that includes a summer of screenings with museums and collectors, a limited theatrical release, and then streaming.<\/p>\n\n
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\u2022\u00a0Atlanta\u2019s Black arts legacy celebrated in \u2018Black Zeitgeist\u2019 exhibition<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Portfolio-Website-7.jpeg\")
The official Cannes March\u00e9 du Film screening poster for Atlanta filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper\u2019s Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage, featuring Bearden\u2019s 1981 collage Profile\/Part II, The Thirties: Artist with Painting and Model. (Courtesy of Coffee Bluff Pictures.)<\/p>\n