Lionel Rogosin’s Dangerous Docufictions

With his very first film ON THE BOWERY, Lionel Rogosin forever changed the art of nonfiction filmmaking in America, bridging narrative and documentary practices to portray life on New York’s skid row with an unvarnished authenticity and immediacy steeped in the spirit of neorealism. Born one hundred years ago, Rogosin was committed to fighting racism and fascism wherever they took hold. His convictions led him to South Africa, where he used his camera as a weapon to expose the injustices of apartheid in the docufiction landmark COME BACK, AFRICA. Tackling everything from the horrors of war (GOOD TIMES, WONDERFUL TIMES) to the suffering and resistance that finds expression in African American music (BLACK ROOTS), Rogosin forged a singular body of work as radical in ideas as in form.