Free In Deed / Jake Mahaffy

Black indie directors were tapped for studio blockbusters, and some of the most interesting films about black characters were made on the margins.

What we talk about when we talk about “Black American Cinema” remains an obscure thing, even in the year of #oscarssowhite and Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight. It was a triumphant and tragic twelve months, I suppose. Black directors, those who had created their own opportunities when none were handed to them by Hollywood, emerg