More than 30 years after the release of Melvin Van Peebles' controversial Sweet Sweetback's BaadAsssss Song, his son Mario Van Peebles directs and stars in BAADASSSSS!, a revealing portrait of his pioneering filmmaker father that documents Melvin's exceptional journey through defiance and political controversy as he made cinema history.

Following the success of Watermelon Man, Melvin was determined to push Hollywood boundaries further with Sweet Sweetback's BaadAsssss Song, but was turned down by every major studio. Self-financing his film and risking everything he had, Melvin brought to the world the first black ghetto hero on the big screen. Although only two theaters in the U.S. initially screened it, Sweetback became the top grossing independent hit of 1971.

Shot in Hi-Definition Digital video, Mario Van Peebles' BaadAsssss! pays tribute to the spirit of independent guerrilla filmmaking and the political, sexual and social revolutions of the 1970s.