Event

BAADASSSSS!

BAADASSSSS!

Members $15 Public $20 Includes Reception & Book Signing

An Evening with Legendary Filmmaker
MELVIN VAN PEEBLES

Guest Host: Warrington Hudlin, acclaimed producer, director, and curator, Founder & Chief of
the dvRepublic.org online community and the President of the Black Filmmaker Foundation (BFF).

Join us for a celebration of the life and work of legendary African-American
actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer Melvin Van
Peebles, featuring a screening of the movie Baadasssss!. He is a pioneer of black
cinema most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's
Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films.
Turned down by every major studio including Columbia, where he had a threepicture
deal, Melvin was forced to basically self-finance. Risking everything, he
delivered to the first Black Ghetto hero on the big screenwhether they were
ready or not... Nominated for eleven Tony Awards in 1972, for his Broadway Play
"Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death;" and in 1973, for Musical "Don't Play
Us Cheap," Mr. Melvin Van Peebles is noted as one of the first triple threats in black Hollywood. His other films include The Story of
a Three-Day Pass, The Watermelon Man, and Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha.
In 2003, Melvin's son, Mario Van Peebles wrote and directed the film Baadasssss!, a lively and entertaining look at the making
of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song starring himself as his dad. The real-life father and son dynamic brings an intimacy to this
inspiring and often hilarious tribute to the father of black cinema. (USA, 2003, 108 min., color, 35mm