“Absorbing… the right rap documentary for right now” – Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork
In different hands, It Was All a Dream’s never-before-seen footage of The Notorious B.I.G. making music may have been treated as an object of mythic reverence. Here, legendary writer/filmmaker dream hampton takes off the rose-tinted-glasses that distort our view of past musical eras (and of the icons that define these eras). She replaces them with her grainy DV lens, through which seminal rap superstars like Snoop Dogg, Guru, Method Man and Q-Tip are stripped of their now-epochal status in favour of something more human. Sitting in the back seat with Biggie; in the studio with Snoop – hampton presents some of hip hop’s most iconic personalities in a uniquely candid manner that could have only been captured before these legends became mythologized.
The film’s vérité documentation of a turning point in rap history (captured entirely between 1993-1995) was uncovered from the director’s personal vault and weaved with narration pulled from the articles dream hampton herself wrote in the 1990s. This remarkable exercise in archive becomes hampton’s loving and doleful reflection of what rap was to her in the moment, what it could be, and what it has become.
Stick around after the screening for a Zoom Q&A with director dream hampton and producer Emir Lewis.
Thank you to our community partners Letterboxd, Vinegar Syndrome and Insomniac Film Festival.
Doors will open 45 minutes prior to the screening.
