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![McKay. Banner for Film Festival - Screening of Claude McKay, Wanderings of a Rebellious Poet ( 2025 ) plus Q and A with filmmaker Matthieu Verdeil [ Registration on External Link ]](https://my.princeton.edu/upload/princeton/2026/r3_image_upload_2279616_2037492968bba94349d07b033f46144471cba1f283f67b82e9de35eb398449423b2e007bcfd2jpg_22464442.jpeg)
Film Festival - Screening of Claude McKay, Wanderings of a Rebellious Poet (2025) + Q&A with filmmaker Matthieu Verdeil [Registration on External Link]
by
Sat, Mar 21, 2026
5 PM – 7 PM EDT (GMT-4)
Private Location (sign in to display)
Registration
Details
![McKay. Flyer for Film Festival - Screening of Claude McKay, Wanderings of a Rebellious Poet ( 2025 ) plus Q and A with filmmaker Matthieu Verdeil [ Registration on External Link ]](/upload/princeton/2026/image_upload_2279616_unnamed14jpg_22464643.jpeg)
As part of the fourth edition of the Princeton French Film Festival, you are invited to the US premiere screening of Claude McKay, Wanderings of a Rebellious Poet (2025), followed by a Q&A with actor and filmmaker Matthieu Verdeil.
🏆 Winner of the Prix de la Ville and Prix des Lycéens at the History Film Festival of Pessac, France.
Logistics:In French and English with English subtitles. Open to everyone upon registration (not suitable to young audiences).
Synopsis: At the crossroads of black literary consciousness and political struggle, Claude McKay’s ideas have laid the foundation for major literary schools of thought, including Negritude. Proud vagabond with both a bohemian lifestyle and strong political commitments, chameleon with a magnetic personality, he roamed the four corners of the globe: New York’s literary milieu, the Parisian aristocracy, Russia’s communist intelligentsia and the black diasporas in the port of Marseille. A huge range of playing fields where he forged bonds with some of the great names of his time, from George Bernard Shaw to W.E.B Du Bois, Trotsky and more. Sustained by his many and varied encounters and experiences on several continents, he developed a radical philosophy that was ahead of his time. Recounting the life of Claude McKay means recounting the life of a politically committed poet with a singular outlook.
Organized by the Princeton University's Princeton Film Festival organization. We thank our sponsors and partners for their support. Open to everyone regardless of identity. All rooms are wheelchair-friendly and attendees can contact us at filmfestival@princeton.edu for special accommodations (preferably 48 hours before the scheduled event). Please be aware that pictures might be taken before, during, and after the event.
Speakers
Matthieu Verdeil
A7 Production
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthieu-verdeil-03510432/
Documentary filmmaker Matthieu Verdeil teases apart the lives of artists and extraordinary figures to illuminate their subtleties and make the inexpressible tangible. Equally at ease working solo in Burkina Faso as he is tracing the history of jazz in Marseille, his films are imbued with a vision as meticulous as it is rigorous, capturing the details of everyday life and of his subjects’ artistic practice. In Dans l’armure d’Abraham (“In Abraham’s Armor”), he follows the artist Abraham Poincheval, clad in heavy medieval armor, as he crosses Brittany on foot. Coordinator of the “McKAY Years” (2023–2028), a cultural project honoring the writer Claude McKay, Verdeil’s film Claude McKay, de Harlem à Marseille (“Claude McKay: From Harlem to Marseille”) offers the portrait of a sensitive, striking itinerant writer that resonates with the depth and richness of this major figure of the Harlem Renaissance. He recently directed for France Télévisions a film about Varian Fry, an unsung hero of the Second World War. He is currently making several educational films on the Second World War and preparing a new film on Claude McKay for France 5.
Hosted By
Co-hosted with: French and Francophone Society, Caribbean Graduate Student Association, Princeton Undergraduate Francophone Society