Every N****r is a Star (1973 Film)

Okay, discussing this movie is certainly going to be awkward...

I know that you can buy the movie and download it for $15
www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/blackcamera.8.1.0055?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Yep definitely just an article about film and not the film itself, however the recent publication date is a good sign of continued interest. the article abstract does describe it as a 'lost film', but at least we have some extra info and names to investigate.

Something may be off here. Leal Productions Company Limited exists, but I've found no contact information or address. In fact, the only thing I've found is that it's registered as active on Jamaica companies.com (however I am unsure of how trustworthy of a source they are). This is the only knowledge I have of it.

It almost feels like it could be a hoax, but I think it's more likely to be something that was very briefly seen in a country without the precedent for preservation at that time.

There's very little online, and most of it's about the song, because it was in Moonlight recently and was also sampled by Kendrick Lamar. The only real thing of value out there, that's not been mentioned yet, is the reverse of the original soundtrack sleeve:



This tells us a few new things. Perhaps most notably, the copyright is held by a Dramafilms Inc. who may have actually been the copyright holders for the movie. The name suggests it, certainly. I can only find films by a Dramafilms, Inc. from the beginning of the 1920s, it could viably be the same one but it's unlikely (the founder of the original had no Jamaican connections, had no activity post-1921 and died in the 1960s). The music from the movie was filed for copyright on 29 October 1973. The chances are that neither company still exists, but someone likely inherited their assets.

A different Boris Gardiner release has Dramafilms, Inc. as the copyright and Leal Productions Co. Ltd. as the producer. That's referencing the music of an unrelated project, though.

Of the producers, Rupert Sterling did many things in his life before dying in 2014. The write up is by noted DJ and critic Dermott Hussey who I think is still alive and might be the person to contact.

Given that Edward G. Knight is shown as a producer on other movies (his most famous being Smile Orange in 1976), I suspect he may be the most likely candidate to have kept a copy. I can't find more information on him, though, including whether he's still alive. IMDB links him to the American actor Edward Knight that died in 2009, I think IMDB is inaccurate there though as that Edward was the father of a member of The Brady Bunch, which was active in the same period when Edward G. Knight was running a club in Jamaica.

The movie is cited as the "brainchild" of Eddie Knight and Teddy McCook in a Jamaica Observer news article dated 2015. They were the owners of a nightclub called The Bronco (which was in Union Square in Kingston, and according to an article "self-destructed", it's not there anymore and probably hasn't been for decades). Eddie would be the Edward above, and Teddy McCook died in 2013. Calvin Lockhart died in 2007, too.

I fully believe this movie exists still, unless it was destroyed immediately after being shown. I just don't think it's in the hands of an active distributor, because if it was it'd have been released recently. It's likely in a private collection, which either bodes badly (if it's a collector, it could be anyone) or well (if it's an actor they might be more inclined to release it now).