Edouard de Laurot: Engagement as Prolepsis

Abstract

Forgotten in contemporary histories of cinema, Edouard de Laurot was a true fighter who spent his life participating in armed resistance in three European countries during the Second World War and later propagating revolutionary ideas across two continents. In 1964 he founded the group ‘Cinema Engagé’ in New York, providing a model for later political cinema collectives. He created two masterpieces of engaged art: Black Liberation (1967), inspired by the texts of Malcolm X, and Listen, America! (1970). Author of many articles, interviews, manifestos and scripts, de Laurot contributed to early issues of Film Culture and Cinéaste, which in 1971 published his series of articles devoted to establishing practical relations between cinema and revolution.