Here’s Everything to Know About the Movie Collection and How These Films Were Almost Lost Forever
In 2015 the Kino Lorber film distribution company (who specializes in the restoration of historic and arthouse films) released a DVD/Blu-ray box-set collection of digitally-restored and previously lost and/or forgotten films from the Black American cinema canon of the early 20th century. Titled “Pioneers of African-American Cinema,” the time capsule collection offers an inside look into a largely neglected chapter of film history and shows some of the first successful submissions of the independent film industry.
Throughout the early 1900s, many Black American filmmakers achieved a wide array of success and creative freedom with independently developed films that were free from the prying eyes of the mainstream Hollywood studio system and challenged the conventions of filmmaking at the time. Categorized as ‘race films,’ these innovative movies were made by Black creatives, for Black audiences and featured all-Black casts, so, naturally, they were very popular among the community and often tackled various social issues that were prevalent, like violent racism and social injustice. Many of these films were also some of the first independent movies in the U.S., and they ultimately laid the foundation for the ‘indie films’ of the modern day.
Over 500 of these independent films were made in the first half of the 20th century, but since they were largely disregarded by Hollywood and other mainstream avenues of the industry, preservation efforts weren’t considered a priority and most became inaccessible and were lost to time.
The restoration work toward bringing some of them back from film purgatory was first carried out by BET in the 80s, introducing a new generation to many of the previously forgotten gems of this early independent era. Professors Jacqueline Stewart and Charles Musser (backed by Kino Lorber) continued what BET started and, with the help of a highly successful Kickstarter campaign, were able to successfully revitalize a trove of movies that hadn’t graced screens in roughly a century.
With nearly 25 hours of footage in total, the “Pioneers” collection includes 26 films or so (both feature-length and short films) spanning the entire first half of the 20th century – the earliest being “Two Knights of Vaudeville” from 1915 and the more recent “Dirty Gertie From Harlem U.S.A.” from 1946. The work of many prominent filmmakers and actors is featured in the collection, including that of Oscar Micheaux, Zora Neale Hurston, Francine Everett and many, many more.
Even though a majority of the independent films from this era are still missing and may very well be lost forever, the “Pioneers” box-set is one of the most monumental and culturally significant film revival projects in the history of American cinema, and provides a firsthand perspective into a commonly overlooked epoch of U.S. history – one that spotlights the visionaries and the pioneers who paved the way and created a space for self-determined Black narratives on the big screen.
 released a DVD/Blu-ray){kind=link}