Actor-filmmaker Mario Van Peebles remembers hosting a state-of-the-union meeting at his house in Los Angeles of many of the key black American filmmakers of the day.

The 47-year-old Van Peebles -- the Mexico City-born son of pioneering black filmmaker and activist Melvin Van Peebles -- saw men much like himself as he surveyed the other faces in the room, from Reginald Hudlin to John Singleton.

"Most of us knew our fathers," Mario Van Peebles tells The Sun of that gathering. "Most of us went to college. Very few of us were in gangs, although some might want to pretend a little bit. And we didn't do drugs and we didn't have cans of spray paint for graffiti.

"Yet we were not allowed to make films about guys like us! We were still being told that we had to cater to an audience that had on sneakers and knee pants." It was cheap laughs or do the shoot-'em-up urban gang picture, he says.

That is the day it occurred to Van Peebles that, despite the odds, he should do a film about his father, especially about his father in 1971. That's when Melvin wrote, produced, directed and starred in the seminal black American movie, Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song.

The result is the new drama and mock documentary Baadasssss!, which played at the Toronto Film Festival and the Floating Film Festival as How To Get The Man's Foot Outta Your Ass (Van Peebles was forced to change it by the censors at the Motion Picture Association of America).

Mario, working with executive producer Michael Mann (who directed him in Ali when Mario played Malcolm X to Will Smith's Ali), co-produced, co-wrote, directed and stars in Baadasssss! The film is based on Melvin's autobiographical book about the making of Sweet Sweetback.

"I thought about my dad," Mario says of his inspiration. What drove Melvin, says Mario, "was to make a film about a guy who's a street hustler, who's imperfect, who's flawed, and yet who goes from a 'me' doctrine to a 'we' doctrine.

"And wouldn't it be interesting, 33 years later, to make a film about a guy who can work with people of all colours, who's not an athlete, who's not a rapper, who's not a barbershop dude, and who can speak French, speak Dutch, can talk to the judge and who can talk to the man on the street and who is a real character. And I happen to know this motherf...er. Wouldn't it be interesting to see if you could get away with that."

He did get away with it. Mario optioned Melvin's book (nothing is free). He found just enough money to shoot the $1 million film, although he spent it all on production and housed actors such as Ossie Davis and Joy Bryant at his own home to save money. And he cast himself as Melvin.

"I thought there were other people who could do a damn good job, but what I did know is that I had 18 days, and I knew that there would be one actor who would be on time and I wouldn't have to pay him and he would give me no s--- and he would be right there every time I needed him. And I had another advantage: I studied the guy for 47 years."

As Baadasssss! developed, it took on a life of its own.

"I don't think we always understand all the levels on which we function," Mario says, "any more than we understand what kids will be born to us or what parents we'll be born into or who we'll love. So, sometimes, a film happens as almost an organic thing that comes to you -- and you give in to it."


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