A new documentary exploring the life and work of largely overlooked African-American photographer Alvin Baltrop (1948-2004) was pitched to industry professionals during CPH:DOX Forum. The film, titled Letter to Alvin, is directed by Hilton Als and Göran Hugo Olsson, and produced by Tobias Janson and Melissa Lindgren, with Sweden and the United States attached as producing countries.
The project aims to bring renewed attention to Baltrop, whose photographs documented New York’s LGBTQ+ underground along Manhattan’s West Side waterfront during the 1970s and 1980s.
According to the filmmakers, the documentary, produced by Stockholm-based Story AB, will be built around Baltrop’s extensive but largely unseen archive, combining photographs, film materials, personal recordings and newly discovered negatives.
“The backbone of the film will be Alvin Baltrop’s film and photo archive – an archive that we have full and exclusive access to, and that hasn’t been shown to date,” the team explained during their presentation.
Working largely in obscurity during his lifetime, Baltrop produced what are now regarded as some of the most intimate and striking visual records of queer life in late-20th-century New York. Photographing the abandoned piers of Manhattan’s West Side, he captured a clandestine community shaped by freedom, desire and danger – as well as the looming devastation of the AIDS crisis.
The project proposes a hybrid narrative structure combining archival material with contemporary reflection. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and New Yorker critic Hilton Als will frame the story through a personal letter addressed to Baltrop, creating a dialogue between past and present.
“Combining archival material with interviews, the story unfolds through Hilton Als’ personal letter addressed to Baltrop, creating a dialogue between the past and the present,” the team noted.
For Olsson, known internationally for archival documentaries such as The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, the discovery of Baltrop’s archive has been a major creative impetus.
“What we also have now is thousands and thousands of negatives and slides that have never been seen before… it’s a super big treasure of images,” Olsson told the Forum audience. “We also have footage around Alvin at the time – video and audio recordings he made himself.”
The filmmakers have gained access to the materials through the Alvin Baltrop Trust, working alongside archivists and institutional partners including the Bronx Museum. The estate’s caretaker, Jona Backer, is also collaborating with the production team on the project.
Beyond its portrait of Baltrop himself, the documentary aims to explore the broader cultural and political tensions shaping queer lives in that era. As Als suggested in remarks included in the project presentation, Baltrop’s images offer a coded but powerful testimony.
“The photographs are a kind of secret that they reveal – and it’s up to us to define the world that Alvin was describing,” the team says in the film’s introductory footage.
The film will also examine the contradictions faced by queer artists navigating social visibility and marginalisation. “One of the big points of the film is to talk about being sexually out – and not being allowed to be out with one’s family or at work, because you can’t be a whole self,” the team notes.
For the creative team, Baltrop’s trajectory ultimately reflects a story of resilience and artistic triumph. “It’s a story of triumph when people come from limited means and find a way to express themselves… one person’s triumph over the limitations the world imposes on them,” they add.
Founded in 1998, Story AB has established itself as one of Sweden’s leading documentary production companies, producing award-winning titles for cinema and television alongside fiction series and animated projects.
The project is currently in early development, with an expected release in January 2028. Its current financing includes production support from the Swedish Film Institute, alongside backing from SVT, the Bronx Museum and the producers’ own investment. With a total budget of €890,215, the production has so far secured €363,529 and is seeking an additional €526,686 in financing. Co-production partners currently attached include US-based outfits Louverture Films and Third Streaming.
By drawing on previously unseen materials and a distinctive archival storytelling approach, Letter to Alvin aims to reposition Baltrop’s work within both photographic history and contemporary debates about queer visibility and cultural memory.
As Olsson summarised during the Forum pitch, the project ultimately seeks to transform a vast newly uncovered archive into a cinematic portrait: “We have everything we need – now we’re here to make a 90-minute kick-ass documentary.”
