Singer, actor, activist – Harry Belafonte led one of the great American lives of the 20th century.
Susanne Rostock’s fantastic biographical documentary Sing Your Song presents the struggles, tragedies, and, most of all, triumphs of this extraordinary icon. Belafonte grew up in poverty in Harlem and Jamaica. After fighting in the Second World War, he realised he wanted a life in the arts.
Forging ahead to become a superstar singer and actor, he also became a key face and proponent of the US Civil Rights movement. At the front lines of almost every progressive political battle in modern memory, he drew close to some of the most influential people of the latter half of the 20th century – including Civil Rights hero Martin Luther King, with whom Belafonte took part in the March on Washington, with fellow marchers Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, James Baldwin, Charlton Heston and the film director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Rostock’s fascinating doc follows the trail-blazing trajectory of this deeply principled artist.
