Straight Out of the Mean Streets

Tired of watching friends and relatives fall prey to drugs, crime and other social maladies that ravaged the Red Hook section of Brooklyn where he grew up, Matty Rich decided to fight back. His weapon: a movie camera. "I wasn't interested in film because I loved film or some director," says the 19-year- old director of Straight Out of Brooklyn. "I was angry that everybody around me got destroyed, and I wanted to show that everyday struggle."

Rich is the youngest of the new generation of black directors who, inspired by Spike Lee's in-your-face style of moviemaking, are turning out impassioned films about life on today's mean streets. Belying their age, most of these filmmakers have devoted years to developing their craft. Rich started reading how-to books on film when he was 10. "I didn't know what a right angle was, what a barnyard door was, but they had pictures, and I'd read something once, twice, three times, until I understood it," he recalls.

Two years ago, Rich felt ready to make his first movie. After exhausting $16,000 in cash advances from his mother's and sister's credit cards to buy film stock and pay a cameraman, he went on a local black radio station and appealed to its listeners for the money to finish the project; about 20 chipped in $77,000. A chance meeting with director Jonathan Demme led to a distribution deal and a screening at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Three studios are now pursuing Rich. "It's kind of weird when you're 19 and you're being wooed," he muses. "If I hadn't done this movie, I'd be just another black kid on the street with a gold tooth and a funny haircut."

Equally precocious is John Singleton, 23, who was nine years old when he saw Star Wars and decided that he wanted to grow up to make movies. Growing up was the hard part. Drugs and violence were moving into South Central Los Angeles, where Singleton spent his boyhood, and the temptations were strong. "My parents didn't have a lot of money," he says. "I used to steal little stuff, like candy, toys and Players magazines, but I never got into anything too rough."

The dream of making movies helped keep him straight. "Somebody told me that the film business was controlled by screenplays," he says. "After I heard that, I knew I had to learn how to write, so I did." And well. Singleton won several writing awards at the film school of the University of Southern California. After his graduation, Columbia Pictures quickly signed him up for a three-year deal and gave him $7 million to direct Boyz N the Hood. Like his fellow young black directors, he knew what he wanted to do with the opportunity. "If you make a film," he says, "you have a responsibility to say something socially relevant."