Collections/December 2025
Two Films by Jessie Maple
Featuring a new introduction by scholar Terri Simone Francis, part of Criterion’s Spotlight series With her landmark debut feature Will , pioneering cameraperson turned filmmaker (and all-around Renaissance woman) Jessie Maple became one of the first Black American women to direct an independent feature film, bringing unflinching honesty and stirring emotion to an endearingly tough and tender portrait of a Harlem heroin addict striving to turn his life around. Though she directed only one other feature— Twice as Nice , a vibrant tale of twin sisters competing in college basketball to become the first professional draft pick—Maple blazed a trail that would allow a rising generation of Black women filmmakers to tell their own community’s stories on-screen.
2 films
