Nationtime (DVD)

Best known for his genre-bending movie Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, William Greaves (1926–2014) was the director of over 100 documentary films, the majority focused on African American history, politics, and culture. Nationtime is his vivid account of the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, a historic event that gathered Black delegates from across the political spectrum, among them Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Betty Shabazz, Richard Hatcher, Amiri Baraka, Charles Diggs, Isaac Hayes, Richard Roundtree and H. Carl McCall. Narrated by Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, the film was considered too militant for television broadcast at the time and has since circulated only in a truncated 58-minute version. This new restoration from IndieCollect, with funding from Jane Fonda and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, returns the film to its original 80-minute length and visual quality.