“From Reels to Stills,” the fifth annual Kuumba Black Arts Festival at Wright State University, features pioneering filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles in a free, public presentation on Tuesday, Feb. 10, in the university’s Student Union.

The word “Kuumba,” Swahili for “creativity,” defines the innovative work of Van Peebles, who for the last 40 years has offered fresh, and sometimes controversial, images of African Americans.

The public can attend an Actor’s Studio Segment with Van Peebles from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Endeavor Room, room 156, Student Union. The Actor’s Studio, an open dialogue with Van Peebles featuring clips from his life’s work, will be led by Stuart McDowell, Ph.D., chair of Wright State’s Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures. The public is also invited to a free buffet dinner beginning at 4:45 p.m., followed by Van Peebles’ lecture from 6:15 to 7:15 p.m., in the Apollo Room in the Student Union.

Last year, Van Peebles was honored at the Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York City. “Melvin was independent before there even was such a thing as independent film,” said the tribute given Van Peebles at the 30th anniversary of the Independent Film Project.

Perhaps the best known of Van Peebles’ work is his groundbreaking 1971 independent film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Crude and offensive by “establishment” standards, this tale of a black fugitive’s one-man vendetta against the white establishment proved to be an enormous hit with African American audiences. It also proved Van Peebles, who not only produced, directed, wrote and starred in Sweet Sweetback, but also edited and scored the film, was a genuine “Renaissance man.”

Van Peebles also worked on Broadway, writing and scoring the 1971 musical Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death. In 1972, his theatrical project Don’t Play Us Cheap won first prize at the Belgian Film Festival when a hastily produced movie version was offered in competition.

Since then, Van Peebles developed a TV-movie pilot, Just an Old Sweet Song, and wrote and acted in a number of movie and TV projects, frequently in collaboration with his actor/director son, Mario Van Peebles. Last year he completed the film Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha. [CQ]

The subject of a 2005 documentary entitled How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It), Van Peebles has been called the first black director of the modern age, and the “Godfather of independent cinema.” Van Peebles started his career with 11-minute short films in the late 1950s, then moved to France before breaking out in Hollywood in 1970. While in France, he was often mistaken for a French auteur and produced French plays. He speaks English, French and Dutch.