See only at the Roxie Theater, not available online.

Filmmakers Vivek Bald and Alaudin Ullah in person for Q&A!

In Search of Bengali Harlem is a transformative journey for Alaudin Ullah, and for our understanding of the complex histories of South Asian Americans.

As a teenager in 1980s Harlem, Alaudin Ullah was swept up in the revolutionary energy of early hip-hop. He rejected his working-class Bangladeshi parents and turned his back on everything South Asian and Muslim until he became an adult.  In Search of Bengali Harlem follows Ullah, from the streets of New York City to the villages of Bangladesh to uncover the pasts of his father, Habib, and mother, Mohima. He discovers that Habib was part of an extraordinary history of mid-20th century Harlem, in which Bengali men, dodging racist Asian Exclusion laws, married into New York’s African American and Puerto Rican communities – and in which the likes of Malcolm X and Miles Davis shared space and broke bread with immigrants from the subcontinent.