Before anything else, this lyrical documentary homage by Raoul Peck (Oscar-nominated for I Am Not Your Negro) is about the work: the axis-shifting impact of Black South African photographer Ernest Cole’s intimate insights into life in his home country under apartheid. His extraordinary 1967 book, House of Bondage, exposed the realities of South Africa’s racial oppression to a wider world. This film, though, goes beyond the initial impact of Cole’s photography to explore the personal cost of his work. Following the publication of the book, he was forced to live abroad, making America his home, but found himself increasingly unmoored and creatively disfranchised.

There’s also an element of mystery to Lost and Found. A question mark lingers over the fact that Cole’s archive, long since believed lost, turned up in a Swedish bank vault. The narration, by LaKeith Stanfield, speaks on behalf of the photographer, who died in 1990. It’s through his remarkable pictures of South Africa and Black America, however, that we really hear his voice.

• In UK and Irish cinemas