• 8984 Sat, 16 Aug 2025 16:00:00 @ Kino 1

Director: Jessie Maple
Producer: Jessie Maple,Leroy Patton
Screenwriter: Jessie Maple,Anthony Wisdom
Cinematographer: Leroy Patton
Editor: Willette Coleman,Jessie Maple
Key Cast: Obaka Adedunyo,Robert Dean,Loretta Devine

One of the first independent feature films directed by an African-American woman, this fearless depiction of heroin addiction in 1980s Harlem has been restored to luminous 4K. 

Former college basketball star Will (Obaka Adedunyo) is struggling to kick his heroin addiction and find a stable job, while Jean (Loretta Devine, Waiting to Exhale), his tough but supportive wife, works hard to keep their household afloat. A renewed sense of purpose arrives in the form of a drug-using, destitute 12-year-old, whom Will takes in and affectionately nicknames Little Brother. Will adopts a mentor role towards the boy in order to incentivise himself to do better, but returning to the straight and narrow path proves fraught with temptation. 

Unapologetically frank and deeply emotional, Will features fierce performances from Adedunyo and prolific actor Devine in her first film role. Trailblazing director Jessie Maple made the film on a shoestring budget of $12,000, shooting on 16mm alongside her husband, cinematographer LeRoy Patton. Maple’s determined DIY ethos even extended to exhibition: for the film’s premiere, she and Patton converted the basement of their Harlem brownstone into a cinema dubbed 20 West, which became a long-running venue used to elevate other Black filmmakers. Recently restored from near obscurity and championed by directors such as Julie Dash, this pioneering film can at last be granted its due. 

“Will’s crisis has a spiritual dimension, and Maple evokes it, dramatically and symbolically … a blunt cinematic instrument of immense power.” – The New Yorker