It's the early 1970s and Hollywood's black actors are limited to simple Uncle Tom-style slave roles or "super negroes" frightening the white folk.

Director Mario Van Peebles - a hot property after the hit Watermelon Man - is determined to fight fashion and introduce cinema's first black ghetto hero.

But in an industry as conservative as this, a story about a black street hustler-turned-revolutionary going on the run after a killing two racist cops ain't gonna happen.

So Peebles raises a shoestring budget from friends and contacts - including Bill Cosby - and shoots the film in just 19 days playing the lead role as well as directing.

In order to use a black and white mixed crew (Hollywood's unions were just as racist as their bosses), he disguised the movie as a porn flick to avoid their attention.

Things couldn’t get any worse when they did - his crew spent the weekend in jail after a redneck cop decided they couldn't have come by their equipment legally.

Then Peebles discovered the sight in his left eye was failing and he had just $13 in his pocket with the movie accepted for screening in just two cinemas across America.

You can't really fail with a story as good as this and Van Peebles captures the frustrations of guerrilla film-making in all their will-sapping desperation.

At times sentimentally romanticised, it also boast so many uses of the expletive motherf****r that if would be half an hour shorter if deleted from the dialogue.

Sometimes, it all gets a little Spinal Tap but fact remains stranger than fiction with the Black Panther's endorsement ensuring the movie's success, actually out-performing Love Story.

It also made a big difference - apparently superfly John Shaft was originally cast as a white man until this paved the way for Richard Roundtree getting the gig.

Tim Evans