United States in 1990, the estate of Langston Hughes initially attempted to have the film censored because of copyright violations: permission allegedly had not been obtained by the filmmakers permitting them to use the poetry of Hughes in the film. During subsequent screenings of Looking for Langston, the sound was repeatedly turned down when the work of Hughes was read. Despite allegations of censorship from critics at the time of the U.S. premiere of the film, the estate had allowed many of Hughes' poems to appear in gay anthologies in the print media and continues to do so until this day. Today it falls under the auspices of the British Film Institute as part of its national "Black World" initiative celebrating black creativity in film. Cast Ben Ellison as Alex Matthew Baidoo as Beauty Akim Mogaji as James John Wilson as Gary Dencil Williams as Marcus Guy Burgess as Dean James Dublin as Carlos Harry Donaldson as Leatherboy Jimmy Somerville as Angel Stuart Hall as British voice (voice) Langston Hughes as Himself (archive footage) Awards Teddy Award for Best Short Film at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was selected to be shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. See also African-American culture and sexual orientation Notes References Appiah, Kwame Anthony; Henry Louis Gates (2003). Africana: The Concise Desk Reference. Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers. Blount, Marcellus; George P. Cunningham (1996). Representing Black Men. New York: Routledge. Mercer, Kobena (1994). Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge. Munoz, Jose Esteban (1999). Disidentifications: Queer of Color and the Performance of Politics (Cultural Studies of America, V.2). University of Minnesota Press. Rampersad, Arnold (1988). The Life of Langston Hughes Volume 2: I Dream A World. "Ask Your Mama!", p. 336. Oxford University Press. Smith, Valerie (ed.), (2003). Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. West, Sandra L. (2003), "Langston Hughes". In Aberjhani & Sandra West (eds), Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, p. 162. Checkmark Press. Further reading Padva, Gilad (2014). "Black Nostalgia: Poetry, Ethnicity, and Homoeroticism in Looking for Langston and Brother to Brother". In Queer Nostalgia in Cinema and Pop Culture, pp. 199–226. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. . External links Metro Picture Gallery Exhibition of Looking for Langston. 1989 films 1989 LGBT-related films British LGBT-related films