UK premiere of Ming of Harlem

Two of Phillip Warnell’s films, Outlandish and Ming of Harlem were screened at Tate Modern on Wednesday February 18th at 6.30pm.

Ming of Harlem: Twenty One Storeys in the Air is an only-in-New-York account of Ming, Al, and Antoine Yates, who cohabited in a high-rise social housing apartment at Drew-Hamilton complex in Harlem for several years until 2003, when news of their dwelling caused a public outcry and collective outpouring of disbelief. On the discovery that Ming was a 500-pound pound Tiger and Al a seven-foot alligator, their story took on an astonishing dimension.

The film frames Yates’s recollections with a poetic study of Ming and Al, the predators’ presence combined with a text by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, reimagining the circumstances of the wild inside, animal names, strange territories, and human-animal relations.

Ming of Harlem was awarded the Prix Georges de Beauregard International Jury Prize at FID Marseille, 2014.

For more details see the Tate’s website

Find out more about BA(Hons) Filmmaking

and MA Experimental Film