Maya Cade, of the Black Film Archive, will receive Milestone Films
Milestone films is a small, but powerful distribution company that is dedicated to finding works that were lost to history and restoring them. They then reintroduce them to anyone who wants to watch them. Amy Heller, Dennis Doros and their team have run the company from their New Jersey home for the past 25 years. Now they are both preparing to retire. As the only employees of the company, “we are all that.” It’s the two of us and we want it to continue.”
How to keep it going after they step down is something they’ve been discussing for a decade, and now they’ve hit on a novel solution. They’re giving the company away, to Maya Cade, the noted programmer behind the Black Film Archive.
Heller and Doros said that last summer they had discussed with Cade, who volunteered herself, the idea of simply handing over their company.
“When we met Maya, we just thought, ‘Oh, well, we found her,'” Heller said. “We have found someone we love and trust who can make this move enthusiastically.” Since then, Milestone Films has grown to be an internationally recognized distributor who helps bring back forgotten or little-seen movies. Since the last 18-years, the company has focused on work by or about directors who are Blacks, Native Americans, and L.G.B.T.Q. or women — artists from segments of the population that are underrepresented in the canon.
Milestone’s best-known titles include the Charles Burnett masterpiece “Killer of Sheep” (1978), a portrait of a working-class Black family in Los Angeles that was rereleased last month in a restored version; Kathleen Collins’s “Losing Ground” (1982), which the Times critic Manohla Dargis praised as a radical rom-com; and Bridgett Davis’s “Naked Acts” (1996), a dramedy about an actress with a dark past who struggles with committing to a nude scene in a film.
“Naked Acts” was brought to Milestone in 2022 by Cade, a former Criterion Collection employee who also works as a film programmer and consultant on Black movies for distribution. Cade began the digital archive in 2021 after nationwide protests against the police killing George Floyd. Doros was soon drawn to her work. They began talking weekly, forming a friendship, then a working relationship.
Speaking from her home in Los Angeles last month, Cade, 31 said that this moment of transition had found her in a state of peace.
“When you walk in your purpose, things align,” she said. “I am very happy to feel that I have found my purpose and I am entrusted the legacy of Black film makers and people who are dedicated to filmmaking as truth. It’s an honour.”
The Cade company has been profitable for the past eight years almost continuously, Heller and Doros stated. Cade will lead Milestone Films, which will join a small list of Black-run distributors including Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing and Mypheduh Films, founded by Halie Gerima and Shirikiana Aina. Cade will lead Milestone Films under her direction. This will bring it into a small group of Black-run distribution companies, including Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing, and Mypheduh Films founded by Halie Gerima Shirikiana Aina, and Selome Gerima. There are still details to be worked out and materials to be transferred. Cade said that studying the success of Tyler Perry, the Hollywood impresario and studio owner whose works once thrived on the secondary market as bootlegs, might be key. Cade suggested that studying the success of Tyler Perry – the Hollywood impresario who owned a studio whose bootlegs once flourished on the second market – could be the key. “In the modern context, home video is as close as you can get to owning a movie in a particular format. What does it take to get Black people excited about this? What are some ways Milestone can reach out to them?” She is optimistic, but she knows there will be many challenges. In her first year at the helm of Milestone, she plans to release one or two films as she finds her footing.
She will lead with what she describes as “care work,” establishing relationships with Black filmmakers and reinforcing the connections that made Milestone a success.
“Knowing that this is the home of Charles Burnett, Kathleen Collins, that isn’t something that you can simply rebuild,” she said.
Heller and Doros say their work at Milestone has been personal and political. Heller and Doros say their work at Milestone has been personal and political. Heller said, “With a bit of luck, we will stay on the planet to be available for her questions.” “We hope that we can have the deep knowledge she needs when she needs it.”
