In his final film as director, Gordon Parks (The Learning Tree, Shaft) turned the camera upon himself and created a deeply personal and remarkably poetic self-portrait. Moments Without Proper Names blends Parks’s striking photographs (spanning four decades) with newly-shot footage of the artist, his own musical compositions, and personal reminiscences performed by a trio of esteemed actors: Avery Brooks, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Joe Seneca. Restored from the original camera negatives, presented in cooperation with the Gordon Parks Foundation and the Library of Congress, Moments Without Proper Names offers a penetrating gaze into the life and mind of one of the 20th Century’s most celebrated artists.

To be a free man and a man with a trade, was a lot to be proud of for a Black man in 19th Century America. Solomon Northup was such a man. Then, one fateful day, his good life and all his dreams came to a crashing halt. Solomon Northup was kidnapped and carried off into slavery to serve on plantations in the South. For twelve long years he experienced the cruelty and subjugation that was slavery. Under any circumstances, it’s a harrowing story, one that is compelling and wonderfully realized in this motion picture. Under most circumstances, this would be a story worth telling. Under these circumstances, it is a story that needs to be told. For the story of Solomon Northup is a true story, adapted from his own autobiography, "Twelve Years a Slave."