Rediscover the Work of Black Filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles

Adding a touch of his own experiences in the Air Force, and the flavor of the French New Wave to his adaptation of the novel La Permission, Melvin Van Peebles wrote and directed his first feature, The Story of a Three Day Pass with a $60,000 grant from the French Cinema Center. Unable to find a filmmaking assignment in Hollywood due to the unwillingness to hire an African American filmmaker, Van Peebles had been invited to Paris by the founder of the Cinémathèque Française. In this film Van Peebles explores France’s contradictory attitude towards race and the psyschology of an interracial relationship in this playful, yet subversive, film. His sarcastic style in The Story of a Three Day Pass laid the groundwork for his revolutionary hit film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.

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