Ailey

In her documentary, shown at the Sundance festival, Jamila Wignot shows the extraordinary path of a man "possessed" by dance - a hungry kid struggling to survive in Texas and an elegant adult, who years later receives the Kennedy Center Honors Award for Contribution to American Culture to applause by Faye Dunaway and Nancy Reagan. An extraordinary path, but also a very lonely one, because despite his talent, Alvin Ailey, a recognized dancer and choreographer, apparently did not feel worthy of success nor even love, as his friends suggest in the film. Stories about Australian audiences reacting to his art "as if they had an orgasm" and about a friend from Paris, who once abandoned him practically without saying a word, intertwine in Wignot's work with the memories of people whom Ailey helped accept their own identity, but also revealed their beauty on stage. Now, they are trying to repay him by dancing until they're breathless.