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Borderline

Screening on Film
Directed by Kenneth MacPherson.
With Paul Robeson, Eslanda Robeson, Hilda Doolittle.
US, 1930, 35mm, black & white, 65 min.

In March 1930, the actor and singer Paul Robeson participated with his wife Eslanda in the ten-day filming of the European experimental film Borderline directed by Kenneth Macpherson, editor of the film journal Close Up (1927-33), the first British journal dedicated to film as a modernist art form. Borderline attempts to depict the psychological states of its protagonists using a technique that American poet Hilda Doolittle, known as “H.D.,” called “clatter-montage,” in which an effect of superimposition is achieved through rapid montage combinations. A variation on the model of romantic psychodrama, Borderline depicts the extramarital relationship of a white man, Thorne (Gavin Arthur) and a mulatto woman, Adah (Eslanda Robeson). In reaction to this situation, the wife of Thorne, Astrid (played by H.D.) invites Pete (Paul Robeson), the husband of Adah, to join them. What follows is a series of conflicts that lead to tragic consequences for both couples in this bold exploration of interracial relationships, sexuality, desire, tension, and injustice.

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Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow