Julie Dash, Matty Rich, Darnell Martin, Ernest Dickerson, Leslie Harris and Theodore Witcher on a boom that went bust, and what's different now.

For the first time in a long time, things seemed to be changing in Hollywood. Black filmmakers were making inroads where their white counterparts had long been parked, bringing with them an array of perspectives and experiences seldom recognised by mainstream American production companies. The bad old days — of blackface and white saviours, of "colourblind" studio executives and all-white Oscar nominees — grew, for a while, hazy and remote, suddenly incongruous with the diverse new landscape.


Sentenced to 'director's jail'

'If you're in, eventually you'll be out'

"This feels different"