The new documentary Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, which traces the life and career of the late Lorraine Hansberry, is set to have its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival this fall. Narrated by LaTanya Richardson Jackson and featuring the voice of Tony winner Anika Noni Rose as Hansberry, the film combines interviews with rare archival material to create a vivid portrait of the A Raisin in the Sun playwright and activist.
Both Noni Rose and Richardson Jackson starred in the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway.
In the 1950s, when Hansberry began writing a drama about a black family on Chicago’s South Side, Broadway had yet to see a play by a female African-American playwright. Her landmark work, A Raisin in the Sun, opened at the Belasco Theatre in 1959, and remains an important part of the theatrical canon.
Tracy Heather Strain’s documentary, Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, brings Hansberry’s story to life featuring interviews with artists, friends, and colleagues. Among those interviewed are Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, who starred in the original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun.
Hansberry’s other plays include The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window and Les Blancs. She died at age 35.
Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart is produced by director Strain and Randall MacLowry. The film’s title is derived from a moving Hansberry quote: “One cannot live without sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know and react to the miseries, which afflict this world.“
For more information on the film, visit HansberryProject.com.
Flip through photos of the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Denzel Washington, Richardson Jackson, and Noni Rose.
