Charles Burnett is an inspiration to aspiring filmmakers everywhere. With only $10,000 to his name, Burnett spent two years in the early 1970s filming his debut directorial effort
Killer of Sheep. Though legal problems related to music employed in the film prevented it from getting a general theatrical release (it played at film festivals in the late 1970s), it finally got released to the public in 2007 and has since become regarded as an important historical artifact in the history of independent cinema. Burnett's accomplishments here feel like a precursor to legendary 1990s indie filmmakers like Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez and Cheryl Dunye who also went out and made deeply personal cinema on shoestring budgets. Even if it didn't get a conventional theatrical release until the 21st-century, the very existence of
Killer of Sheep paved the way for then-future cinema by showing what was possible with independently produced filmmaking.
