Pioneers of African-American Cinema (2015) is a digitally restored anthology collection of independent Black cinema from the first half of the 20th century. Known as "race films," this category of film was made outside the of the Hollywood system, and is notable for its exploration of issues of "class, gender, and politics within the Black community." The most important of these filmmakers was groundbreaking auteur Oscar Micheaux, whose films Within Our Gates (1920), with "its head-on confrontation of racism and lynching,"The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), about black homesteaders struggling for survival against the Ku Klux Klan on the Midwestern plains," and Body and Soul (1925), featuring legendary performer Paul Robeson's debut as an escaped prisoner, are all included. Directors Spen