A DVD Black History Lesson

BAADASSSSS! (2003)

Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was the first of its kind: an independent movie made by a black filmmaker, one that would defy expectations and confound a Hollywood that never thought to make a film that didn't objectify or speak down to the black audience. Thirty-two years after its release, actor-director Mario Van Peebles honored his father's work by making a film about the making of that film, and detailing the financial, mental, and physical risks the elder Van Peebles took on while making cinema history.