On the occasion of the 2026 Francophonie Festival, French filmmaker Matthieu Verdeil will be coming to Atlanta to present his latest documentary, Claude McKay, Wanderings of a Rebellious Poet.
A major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, the African American cultural movement of the 1920s, Claude McKay was an engaged poet and novelist, travelling across the US, Russia, Europe, and North Africa. For nearly two decades, he captured the energy of cities and their social movements, shaping a body of work that remains strikingly relevant today.
On March 16 at the Alliance Française and on March 13th at Georgia State University, the French producer and director Matthieu Verdeil will present his remarkable documentary portrait Claude McKay, Wanderings of a Rebellious Poet. The film, illustrated with rare archival footage and photographs, told in his own words, narrated by Gaël Faye, and set to a stirring soundtrack, brings his legacy to life. Each screening will be followed by a Q&A.
Born in Jamaica, McKay moved to the US to attend college. Confronted with segregation, racism and violence in the country, he wrote his famous anti-lynching poem , “If We Must Die”, standing for dignity and rebellion. Soon after, he left the segregated South and embarked on a long journey through the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, France, Spain, and Morocco, where he immersed himself in socialist circles and was confronted with the social issues of his time. His work shed light on the dispossessed and the working-class, notably in Marseille, portrayed in his novel Romance in Marseille. Over about fifteen years, his international experiences shaped his radical political thought, as well as his Pan-African and anti-colonial outlook.
Production Cinétévé France, 52 minutes, 2025
Doors open at 6:30 PM with the film starting at 7:15 PM. This screening will be in French with English subtitles.
Learn more about the event here, and the Atlanta Francophonie Festival here.
Event at Georgia State University on March 13th:
The screening will start at 11:30 AM and finish at 2:30 PM and will be followed by a panel discussion with Edvige Jean-François (Host), Dr. Rashana Lydner (Panelist), Dr. Harcourt Fuller (Panelist) and Curt Jackson (Moderator).
Learn more about the event
Event at Alliance Française Atlanta on March 16th:
The film will be screened at Alliance Française from 7:00 to 9:00 PM and will be followed by a Q&A with Matthieu Verdeil and Stephane Dunn.
Learn more about the event
Matthieu Verdeil
Film Director and Producer
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For over 20 years, film director and producer Matthieu Verdeil has pursued a distinctive path at the crossroads of history, memory, and artistic creation. He dedicates much of his career to rediscovering overlooked figures and movements in cultural history, including Varian Fry and Claude McKay.
In 2021, Verdeil directed Claude McKay: From Harlem to Marseille, the first documentary devoted to the “vagabond poet.” Combining historical rigor with poetic sensitivity, the film was screened in France, the United States (New York, Washington, Chicago), Germany, the United Kingdom and beyond.
Building on this work, Verdeil launched Les Années McKay (2023–2028), under the patronage of Christiane Taubira. Among its highlights was KAY! Letters to a Lost Poet – a performance blending jazz, slam poetry, and archival material – created in collaboration with actor-musician Lamine Diagne and American poet Mike Ladd.
In 2025, he completed a second documentary on Claude McKay, narrated by Gaël Faye, scheduled for broadcast in 2026 alongside new book releases and an audio album of McKay’s texts.
Currently, Verdeil is preparing a new television film dedicated to the Harlem Renaissance.
Stephane Dunn
Writer, Filmmaker and Cultural Scholar
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Stephane Dunn, PhD, MA, MFA (University of Notre Dame), BA (University of Evansville) is a writer, filmmaker, professor, and cultural scholar. She focuses on the historical and contemporary politics of race and gender in American and African American culture. Professor Dunn teaches at Morehouse College and is one of the co-founders and the first Chair of the Morehouse Cinema, Television & Emerging Media Studies (CTEMS) department. She is the author of the book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (University of Illinois Press), the novel Snitchers (2022), and several plays, and many articles. Her writings have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Newsweek, The Chronicle of Higher Education, CNN.com., The Atlantic, Vogue.com, The AJC, Chicago Defender,
TheRoot, MsNews.com, and many others. She is the 2016 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award winner for Snitchers and the 2020 Finish Line/Tirota Social Impact Screenwriting Competition winner for her screenplay Chicago ’66, a fictional narrative set the backdrop of the Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966, and a 2024 Television Academy Foundation Alex Trebek Legacy Fellowship awardee. Dr. Dunn is a frequent invited moderator and commentator and has been featured on local and national networks, including MSNBC TV, A & E Network’s ‘Voices Magnified’, E! Entertainment, NY Public Radio, NPR (Atlanta), ND Magazine, the documentary Body Parts, and the Margaret Mitchell House Museum Gone with the Wind exhibit in Atlanta. Dr. Dunn has produced and co-written the short films, Fight for Hope (first place BronzeLens Georgia Lottery Lights Action Camera competition), and Mr. Creek’s MoveFOR SHANIQUA GAY LONG VERSION: Gay is a storyteller, born and raised in Georgia, whose work draws on the environment and spiritual symbolism of the American South. Blending motifs from regional life, she explores identity, culture, and power through storytelling, highlighting formidable female figures and intergenerational relationships. Her practice—encompassing installations, paintings, performance, photography, video, and monumental sculptures—challenges dominant narratives, reclaims space through personal memory and mythology, and creates immersive environments that invite reflection on self and belonging.
