Once Upon a Time in Harlem

Wexner Center for the Arts is bringing Once Upon a Time in Harlem to Columbus on Saturday, October 24, at 4 PM. It's the Ohio premiere of the documentary, and it's part of Unorthodocs 2026, with a reception in the lower lobby after the screening.

The film is a reconstruction of a party William Greaves staged in 1972 at Duke Ellington's house. He brought together the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance—many of whom hadn't seen each other in half a century—and let them talk for four hours. They reminisced, critiqued, argued, laughed, and drank, all while wrestling with their place in a cultural landscape that was shifting fast around them. Shot on 16mm, the work introduces you to the Harlem Renaissance and puts you in the room with its greatest minds.

It's a family affair, too: William Greaves directed it, and his son, David Greaves, completed it. The finished film runs 100 minutes. It's earned some high praise along the way—The Hollywood Reporter called it "a piece of cinematic resistance" at a moment of erasure of Black achievements, and The New Yorker described it as "one of the greatest cinematic works of creative nonfiction" the writer had ever seen.

The screening is at the Wexner Center's film/video theater, 1871 N. High Street, and the reception follows in the lower lobby. Tickets are $12 for the general public, $8 for members, $9 for adults 55 and over, and $6 for students. The whole thing is funded by GCAC, OAC, and ARTober.