Max Van Peebles

In a crumbling Europe, powerful mafia families have emerged from the anarchy to vie for control of the lucrative arms trade.

In 1971, director Melvin Van Peebles turned the figure of the black hero in US cinema upside down with Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song: the story of the making of a seminal movie that initiated the Blaxploitation movement, a short-lived but highly influential sub-genre in the years that followed.