Over the last century, the Black movie space has evolved and been crafted by multiple filmmakers, helping pave the way for modern names such as Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay and Barry Jenkins.
Speaking to CTV’s Your Morning on Friday during Black History Month, film critic Radheyan Simonpillai shared his list of some of the most influential movies that have defined Black filmmaking today.
WITHIN OUR GATES (U.S., 1920)
Directed by Oscar Micheaux, the silent movie "Within Our Gates" is the oldest surviving film by a Black filmmaker.
"I get that it’s challenging to watch a 100-year-old silent film, but it is … such a fascinating movie," Simonpillai said.
The film tells the story of a teacher in the American South who tries to raise money for a school to educate young Black children, and her fight against those who think otherwise.
"It’s a very fascinating subject from a fascinating period," Simonpillai said.
He stresses that while the oldest surviving Black film, "Within Our Gates" isn’t the first.
Others came before, including a film Micheaux created the previous year called "The Homesteader."
Due to a lack of care to restore them, those films have since been lost to history.
While long thought to be lost, decades after its release "Within Our Gates" was rediscovered in Spain.
BLACK GIRL (SENEGAL, 1966)
"Black Girl" tells the story of a young Senegalese woman hired as a nanny for a couple in the French Riviera, a life that soon becomes one of slave labour.
A film by Ousmane Sembène, who is often referred to as the father of African cinema, "Black Girl" stands as Simonpillai’s favourite on the list.
"The movie is just this really potent and brilliant take on microaggressions and psychosexual power games, and how pervasive post-colonialism really is," he said.
SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG (U.S., 1971)
While fans of Quentin Tarantino will know his affinity for the Blaxploitation genre, "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" truly stands as the "OG," Simonpillai says.
A film about a sex worker on the run after killing a pair of police officers who brutalized a Black Panther, Simonpillai describes "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song" as an "angry, raunchy, incredibly groovy movie."
"So right there, you can tell this is not a politically delicate movie. It goes there," he said.
"It’s about sticking it to the man, it’s about … refusing to play by the man’s rules."
Featuring music by Earth, Wind & Fire, Simonpillai says director and star Melvin Van Peebles had to film the movie as pornography in order to get around union and Hollywood interference, resulting in it receiving the tagline: "Rated X by an all-white jury."
THE HARDER THEY COME (JAMAICA, 1972)
Considered an answer to "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song," Jamaica’s first film "The Harder They Come" tells a similar story of an outlaw on the run.
Performed by musician Jimmy Cliff, the movie is about an aspiring musician looking for odd jobs in Kingston, who later encounters a series of challenges and eventually "snaps."
"But while he kind of climbs the most wanted list, his song, ‘The Harder They Come,’ keeps climbing and climbing higher on the charts," Simonpillai said.
The film also is credited for helping to put reggae on the map.
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (U.S., 1991)
Hints of Beyoncé’s hit 2016 album "Lemonade" can be traced back to the poetry and imagery of "Daughters of the Duxjmtzywst," Simonpillai says.
The first movie in theatres directed by an African-American woman, Julie Dash, the film is about members of an isolated community in the American South during the post-Reconstruction era and their plans to move north, while still holding onto the trauma they feel.
"It’s about how they try to retain that ancestry, that culture, in their bodies … so it’s a movie about holding onto Black history," Simonpillai said.
