Jessie Maple Estate Talk ‘Will’ 4K Release & Legendary 20 West Cinema

Jessie Maple began work on Will, a spirited tale about addiction and community ties in contemporary Harlem, in the late ‘70s. The project was completed in 1981 and is widely recognized as the first independent feature written, directed, and produced by a Black American woman. Last Friday, some four decades later, Maple’s debut film received its first full theatrical release via Janus Films.

Janus opened a 4K restoration of the film at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

A true landmark of independent American cinema, Will was shot on location in Harlem with a budget no greater than $12,000. Obaka Adedunyo stars in the film as a former All-American basketball star who has fallen from grace due to drugs. 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 Will 4K restoration was a joint project between the Black Film Center & Archive (BFCA) at Indiana University, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Center for African American Media Arts. 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.

Graham’s Black Debutantes series was the first time I saw Will. 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.

“Her film legacy has been kept as the treasure that it is,” E. Danielle Butler, Maple’s longtime collaborator and co-author of her 2019 memoir, told us ahead of the film’s release.

Maple’s work indeed marks a significant point in the evolution of independent U.S. cinema culture. Alongside her work as a director, Maple was a film entrepreneur, launching 20 West, an indie cinema, in the 80s. The venue was based out of her Harlem home and debuted the first works from filmmakers like Spike Lee, Julie Dash, and Brazil’s Carlos Diegues.

Below, Butler and Maple’s daughter, Audrey Snipes, speaks to us about the origins of the new 4k restoration, 20 West, and why Maple, who died in 2023, was surprised by contemporary interest in her film work.

DEADLINE: How did this 4K restoration come about? ‘Will’ has been such a difficult film to find for decades. There aren’t even really bootleg copies around.

AUDREY SNIPES: The Smithsonian contacted my mother about restoring the film because, you know, it was the first film written, directed, and independently produced by a Black woman. They asked whether or not it would be something she would want to do and how they could help.

DEADLINE: Was your mother immediately interested?

SNIPES: Honestly, she was surprised that somebody wanted to restore it.

DEADLINE: Why do you think she was surprised? It was quite the achievement and worth honoring? 

SNIPES: Because of everything that she has been through. She was never into the “Hollywood” thing. She just wanted to write and produce things she was passionate about.

DEADLINE: It’s an interesting point: the wider industry is now interested in claiming the film. But it was actually made with a great radical spirit and, really, in opposition to the traditional pillars of our industry. How do you maintain that original radical spirit? 

SNIPES: Yeah, it does seem like when an individual passes away is when people give them their flowers. But that’s the culture of this world. She was 86 when she passed, so people had a lot of time to honor her.

DANIELLE BUTLER: In terms of keeping the radical nature of the film’s origin, it happens through moments like this, where we can discuss the film’s origins. This film was inspired by Jesse Maple’s experience with her brother, who was navigating his own challenges of addiction. Also, the film is an authentic look at Harlem at that time. It’s a film made in the 70s, released at the top of the 80s, when we see individuals, communities, and families struggling with understanding and treating addiction. To Audrey’s point, we give people their flowers after they are gone. But we must say this wasn’t made for flowers. It was made to provide a true depiction of what was happening at the time. And it has circled back in an almost prophetic way. We’re facing a similar crisis right now with opioids. Jessie Maple told us in the 70s that the way out of this was to value community. That’s the film’s radical legacy.

SNIPES: Also, Harlem has changed so much that you can really see the difference in this film. Before the Marshall and TJ Maxx stores came in, and even before Magic Johnson put his theater there, it was a whole different vibe. Let me tell you, it was a great time. Growing up, all you saw in Harlem was Black people. We were all around. We had little mom and pop stores, grocery stores, clothing stores, and we all supported one another.

DEADLINE: Another interesting chapter of your mother’s story is 20 West, the cinema she launched in her Harlem brownstone. Can you tell me a little about how that came to be? 

SNIPES: It came about because my mum struggled to get a release for her work, so she decided to find a play to showcase her work. That’s how my mother was. She didn’t understand the word no. Also, she was into real estate, so she thought, I’m going to take my brownstone and make a theater out of it. And that’s how 20 West was born.

DEADLINE: There’s no official log of the films screened at 20 West, but I gather some of Spike Lee’s first work was shown there? 

BUTLER: Yeah, Spike screened work there. The same problem Jessie was having, she was solving for other people, too, so you have a Spike Lee who is independently creating these films and not finding the best space to show them. And she wasn’t only showing their films, she was paying these filmmakers. It’s important to note that. She understood the business of it. She understood the challenges of being an independent filmmaker. So what you have is her saying, okay, filmmakers screen your film and get paid, so that you know when you go somewhere else, you know that it’s worth something. Spike Lee was definitely on that list. Julie Dash was on there, too. Other films included Pipe Dreams (1976) featuring Gladys Knight, Serving Two Masters (1987), The Scottsboro Boys (1979), and Quilombo (1984).

DEADLINE: Audrey, you starred in Will. What do you remember of the production? 

SNIPES: I was around 14 or 15 years old when it happened, so I didn’t understand the scope of what my mother was doing. My stepfather was the cinematographer, so they had a cohesive work relationship. He could do the lighting, and she understood editing. And the people who helped with things like sound were just friends of hers. It was a small but impactful production.

BUTLER: It’s estimated to have been completed for between $6,000 and $12,000.

SNIPES: And most of the people in the film, except Loretta Devine, who went on to have a great career, were just people from the neighborhood. There were a lot of my family members. The young boy who played Brother was a good friend of mine. He lived next door.

DEADLINE: Jessie died in 2023. Through the decades, before there was talk of restoring her work, what was her relationship to cinema, and how did she feel about her career? Was she hoping to make more work? 

SNIPES: She was always writing and was working on a memoir. At times, she felt her work and what she had accomplished weren’t respected. But she never let it drag her down because she never necessarily wanted to be in the Hollywood scene.

BUTLER: If we consider the evolution of Black cinema in the U.S. and all the contemporary independent filmmakers having their moment, Jessie felt some pride in their success, but also believed it was important that we didn’t forget the legacy of how we got here. To Audrey’s point, Jessie Maple continued working. Her goal wasn’t to make a box office hit. She always wanted to shine a light on what was happening in the community around her. She was in the process of converting many of her scripts into. She released a young adult fiction book in 2018 called Keisha and Bobbi. It was a coming-of-age story.

DEADLINE: The job of upholding an estate requires a lot of work. What are your aims for the future of the Jessie Maple estate? 

SNIPES: We hope that from generation to generation, people will look back on this history and see all that has been accomplished, and hope it will motivate young people to know they can do projects on their own. They don’t need to wait for anyone to say yes.

BUTLER: On the more technical side,  we hope to see the film hit a streaming platform soon. We also hope to see a disc release because, to your point, there aren’t even illegal copies available. Her film legacy has been kept as the treasure that it is. We’re also seeing more interest in research about the Jessie Maple story. And we’d love to see documentaries and biopics come as a part of that. As well as additional books to create this lasting legacy that Audrey envisioned, so many generations have access to not just the film itself, but to the work behind the film.