Next in line

Ava Duvernay, who has scored accolades and awards for her debut short film, "Saturday Night Life," and a documentary about an underground club that was an early venue for hip-hop, "This Is the Life," says she has experienced roadblocks at studios when pitching her script for a romantic drama called "The Middle of Nowhere," about a woman whose life is turned upside down when her husband is imprisoned, even though Phylicia Rashad ("The Cosby Show") and Sanaa Lathan ("Love & Basketball") are attached to the project.

Actor Reginald T. Dorsey, who is seeking distributing for "Kings of the Evening," a drama set in the Great Depression that he helped produce and was a hit at the recent Pan African Film Festival, said studios and backers often tell him and other black filmmakers that the financial risks in investing in projects without a high concept or a major star outweigh the benefits and that there is little international interest in small black films. "It's like a slap in the face," he said. "My movie is more than just a black film. It's about where you're from and what you know."

New York University film school graduate Caran Hartsfield said she has been trying to get financing and distribution for a comedic drama, "Bury Me Standing," for the last year and a half. The script, about four family members and their differing reactions to the death of a relative, has drawn interest from Alfre Woodard ("Desperate Housewives"), Mos Def ("Be Kind Rewind") and Katt Williams ("First Sunday").

"When it comes to Hollywood, there's been all this hemming and hawing," Hartsfield said. "They'll say, 'Oh, we love the script,' but it makes people nervous because it's a black drama. It doesn't fit within the formula; it makes them nervous."

Said actor-director Van Peebles, who bounces between working on his own projects ("Baadasssss!") and appearing and directing TV series ("Damages," "Law & Order"): "It's not that we shouldn't have our Tyler Perrys or that we don't want to laugh. But we don't have our 'A Beautiful Mind' or 'Lost in Translation.' The lack of variety gets to be reductive. In Hollywood, there are only so many slots that are going to be filled by African Americans. It's all about what the dominant culture feels is making money at the time. Are there still cinematic minstrel shows? Absolutely."

Seeing opportunity

Still, some surveying the black film scene say that those who feel creatively stifled are seeing only one side of the picture.