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Jessie Maple Estate Talk ‘Will’ 4K Release & How The Filmmaker’s Independent Harlem Cinema Launched The Work Of Directors Like Spike Lee & Carlos Diegues
Jessie Maple widely considered to be the first Black American woman to write, direct, and producer an independent feature film.
With the support of his wife, Loretta Devine, making her screen debut, Will (Adedunyo) finds a renewed sense of purpose in the community while mentoring a streetwise 12-year-old named Brother (Robert Dean) and coaching a local young women’s basketball team. The 4K copy has received limited screenings at MoMA in New York, the Los Angeles Festival of Movies, and was recently given an international premiere at the British Film Institute in London through the buzzy Black Debutantes series programmed by curator Rógan Graham. Despite increased attention from historians and critics, the two feature projects directed by Maple— Will(1981) and Twice as Nice(1989)—have remained difficult to find, even on the bootleg market, which has often provided the space to discover the work of underappreciated luminaries of American cinema.
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