The extraordinary life and work of South African photographer Ernest Cole will take centre stage in cinemas across the UK and Ireland from 7 March 2025. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, the latest documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck, has already made waves on the international festival circuit, winning L’Œil d’or (The Golden Eye) for Best Documentary at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. The film offers a deeply moving portrait of a man whose unflinching lens exposed the brutal realities of Apartheid and whose legacy continues to shape documentary photography today.
Born in 1940 in South Africa, Ernest Cole developed a passion for photography as a teenager. He documented the harsh realities of Apartheid at great personal risk, capturing images that revealed the daily oppression faced by Black South Africans. His photographs showed people crammed into segregated transport, forced into back-breaking labour, and living under the constant watch of an unjust regime. Determined to tell the truth, Cole managed to leave South Africa by convincing the authorities he was heading abroad to study. Once out of the country, he never returned.
At just 27, Cole published House of Bondage (1967), a groundbreaking photobook that became a landmark in the fight against Apartheid. His images were some of the first to expose the full extent of South Africa’s racial segregation to a global audience. But his bravery came at a cost. Unable to return home, he drifted between cities, struggling to sustain his career and eventually falling into poverty. He died in relative obscurity in 1990, unaware that a vast archive of his work had survived him.
In 2017, a remarkable discovery in a Swedish bank vault changed the way the world would remember him. Some 60,000 of his negatives—thought to be lost forever—were found, offering a fuller picture of his artistic vision and defiance. Peck’s documentary brings these images to life, weaving them with Cole’s own words and rare archival material to create an intimate and urgent narrative.
Following its world premiere at Cannes, the film has been selected for major festivals including the BFI London Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. Critics have praised it as a powerful and propulsive documentary. The Hollywood Reporter described it as “weighty” and “urgent,” while Deadline called it “a powerful testament” to Cole’s life and work. Screen hailed it as “a heartbreaking elegy.”
Peck, best known for I Am Not Your Negro (2016), once again crafts a searing exploration of race, resistance, and memory. His documentary not only cements Cole’s place among the most significant photographers of the 20th century but also interrogates the cost of bearing witness to injustice.
Distributed by Dogwoof, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on 7 March 2025. More information can be found at ernest-cole.film. Cole’s work, represented by Magnum Photos, continues to be celebrated, with exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery and Autograph London providing further insight into his legacy.
A testament to the power of photography and resistance, this documentary ensures that Ernest Cole’s voice, silenced for too long, is finally heard.