Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts (2020, 75 min., U.S./English)
This illuminating documentary explores the life of a unique American artist, a man with a remarkable and unlikely biography. Using historic and cultural context, the film is designed to bring the spirit and mystery of Traylor’s incomparable art to life.
“ ..in Traylor, we can see the power of individual voice…the work is transcendent and essential. ”
Bill Traylor was born into slavery in 1853 on a cotton plantation in rural Alabama. After the Civil War, Traylor continued to farm the land until the late 1920s. Aging and alone, he moved to Montgomery and worked odd jobs in the thriving segregated black neighborhood. A decade later, in his late 80s, Traylor became homeless and started to draw and paint, both memories from plantation days and scenes of a radically changing urban culture.
Traylor devised his own visual language to record the stories of his life, translating an oral culture into something original, powerful, and culturally rooted. He made over a thousand drawings and paintings between 1939-1942. Traylor witnessed profound social and political change during his life spanning slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, and the Great Migration.
Using original cinematography, archival materials, period and original music, dance performances, dramatic readings, family and expert interviews, and, most importantly, Traylor’s striking drawings and paintings, the film will reveal one of America’s most prominent artists to a wide audience.
- Watch the trailer below -
“Brings the spirit and mystery of Traylor’s art to life and shines a spotlight on a creative gift that was long ignored and marginalized.”
“Bill Traylor’s art speaks to the universal language of humanity-a cry for justice, dignity and resilience.”
