Spike Lee

Born: March 1957
Where: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Spike Lee burst onto the movie scene in 1986 with the powerful blow for black moviemaking She's Gotta Have It.

This independently produced, stylish, black-and-white (and partly colour) feature did surprising box-office business and garnered critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival.

Between film projects Lee directed himself as Mars in an Anita Baker music video as well as two Nike Air Jordan television commercials.

TV has been a much more frequent outlet for Lee's creative energies, as he battles to make uncompromising yet commercial films about the black experience within Hollywood's white-dominated financing, production and distribution system.

Following the success of She's Gotta Have It, a number of black musical artists, including Miles Davis, Branford Marsalis, Steel Pulse and Grandmaster Flash, sought Lee to direct their music videos.

Lee's second feature, School Daze, despite being underfinanced by Columbia Pictures, grossed more than twice its cost.

Do the Right Thing enlarged upon his successes on several levels - commercially, artistically and thematically, focussing critically on a predominantly black environment.

Lee's next two films - Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever - failed to live up to the dramatic promise of Do the Right Thing, though both boasted strong performances and increasingly showy camerawork.

Lee's next project would prove to be both his most ambitious and most controversial -Malcolm X was a surprisingly traditional biopic which reaches an emotionally devastating climax.

Lee's 1994 film Crooklyn was a loosely structured story of a jazz musician, his wife and their children in Brooklyn of the 70s while Clockers focussed on crack dealers in Jersey City.

Summer of Sam was a glimpse into the world of a real-life New York serial kiler while Bamboozled featured a black and white minstrel show that's an unexpected hit.

25th Hour, with Ed Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman, followed the misfortunes of a drug dealer facing a lengthy spell in jail

Recent work includes the ill-judged social satire She Hate Me with Anthony Mackie and Ellen Barkin.