Rivers' Edge International Film Festival 2009

Stace England & The Salt Kings now illuminate the legend of Oscar Micheaux. His astonishing story sounds like the stuff of myth and legend but it is all true. The first African American feature filmmaker was born in Metropolis, Illinois, homesteaded in South Dakota, wrote seven novels and wrote, produced and directed 44 films between 1920 and 1948. Audiences were stunned by his jaw dropping push backs to The Birth of a Nation, leading many to ask, “just what impetuous planet was this man from, and how did he pull it off?” Rediscoveries of lost Micheaux films in Europe have re-written film history in the last decade. His unlikely story is both inspirational and transcendent. Micheaux is best known to his growing circle of admirers for his uncompromising vision and his unflinching mission to take on difficult subject matter, no matter what. Staying one step ahead of his creditors he made the films he wanted to make. Micheaux angered as many African Americans as whites, and his sound era masterpiece, God's Stepchildren released in 1938, was picketed by the Communist Party at a showing in Harlem as a "racist" movie.