SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG

Original title: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
Nation, Year: U.S.A., 1971
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles
Main cast: Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales
Length: 97′
Language: Original English audio version
Version: DCP, international distribution by Xenon Pictures
NC-17

After being unjustly arrested and saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute, Sweet Sweetback, begins a manhunt with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels. Chased by white, racist and corrupted cops, he meets on his way any kind of disreputable character of the suburbs between drugs, sex and violence, then he finally managed to escape thanks to his fighting spirit.
The film is a progenitor of the fighting pride of the African-American world. Melvin Van Peebles is not only the director of the film, but also protagonist and writer. He stages a guerrilla film in which an African-American rebel against the injustices of the white oppressors, managing to emerge victorious. Van Peebles takes sides in the racial clash at the opening of the film describing the entire cast in credits as «The Black Community». The Black Panthers praised the revolutionary implications of the film, celebrating it and defining it as the first truly revolutionary Black film made by a black man.