A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, with mourners gathered around a coffin. Downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, although when he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. His story and his visits to the jazz and dance club are framed by voices reading from the poetry and essays of Hughes and others. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.
Ben Ellison
as Alex
Matthew Baidoo
as Beauty
Akim Mogaji
as James
John Wilson
as Karl
Dencil Williams
as Marcus
Guy Burgess
as Dean
Dublin James Wahlberg
as Carlos
Harry Donaldson
as Leatherboy
Jimmy Somerville
as Angel
Langston Hughes
as Self (archive footage)
Stuart Hall
as British (voice)
