Before she died in 2023, filmmaker Jessie Maple had retired and gone to live in Atlanta, Georgia. Her daughter, Audrey Snipes, told the AmNews that at the time, JesMaplesie was doing more antique work.
Although no longer working in film, Maple still did some writing and had been working on her autobiography, but antiquing –– searching, shopping for, and collecting objects from the past –– took up most of her time. She still traveled to a lot of antique shows and would often attend the antique fairs and flea markets in and around New York City.
“Even though she loved New York, loved the city, as she got older, she realized she wanted more of a slower pace,” Snipes said.
This came after many decades of work. Maple had been a film director and Black film advocate: In 1975, she was the first Black woman to join the entertainment industry’s camera operators’ union, the International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television (IATSE). After becoming a camera operator, Maple published the book “How to Become a Union Camerawoman: Film-videotape” (1977) to help guide others toward the information they needed to know if they also wanted to join the union.
Maple became the first Black woman to direct a feature-length film. Her movie “Will” came out in 1981 and starred the future award-winning actress Loretta Devine. The online news site Deadline was first to report that “Will” is set to be shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from June 13 through 19. Viewers will be able to see a new 4K restoration of a classic Black film originally shot with a 16 mm camera.
Efforts to restore the movie involved Indiana University’s Black Film Center & Archive, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Time-Based Media Archives and Conservation staff, and the Center for African American Media Arts. Janus Films is releasing the film.
Set in Harlem during the late 1970s and produced on a modest budget of $12,000, “Will” features Obaka Adedunyo as Will, a former All-American basketball player striving to overcome a heroin addiction. Maple’s husband, cinematographer Leroy Patton, filmed the movie using expansive wide-angle shots to capture Harlem before the onset of gentrification, depicting a time when families came out to talk and play on the neighborhood’s sidewalks, and empty lots and abandoned buildings were common sights. It portrays Will’s journey as he argues with and ultimately gains the support of his wife (Devine) while attempting to transform his life by mentoring a vulnerable 12-year-old (Robert Dean) and coaching a young women’s basketball team.
The story was heartfelt and meant everything to Maple. “When she did the film, she did it because she wanted to share what she was seeing in her community,” her daughter said. “It did have to do a lot with my uncle — her brother, one of her favorite brothers, who was going through a hard time when it came to drugs and rehabilitation, and methadone. That’s how she really started that concept for the film. [She was also trying] to humanize folks during that time (who) happened to get on drugs and happened to use methadone to try to get off of it.”
One of the most important aspects of “Will” is the film’s basic existence. Maple wrote the screenplay, pulled together the funds to direct and produce it, brought together both professional actors and family members to take on roles –– all during a time in the 1970s when film opportunities for Black women were limited. Maples’s daughter said the significance of “Will” lies in the fact that it shows people that “if you have a dream or if you have a concept in your mind, you can produce it yourself. There’s ways and there’s means.”
To see “Will” at BAM, visit bam.org/film/2025/will.
The post Jessie Maple’s film classic ‘Will’ reissued and on view at BAM appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.