[2] Maya Cade, the site's creator, is an American screenwriter and an audience editor for The Criterion Collection.
The genesis for Black Film Archive came in June 2020, after Cade posted a viral Twitter thread of classic Black films amid the George Floyd protests, to provide solace and comfort to others.
She focused on historical selections in part because she has felt disconnected from modern Black cinema.
[3] Cade intentionally limited the database to movies released up to 1979 because film studios heavily invested in Black cinema until the commercial failure of 1978's The Wiz.
[6] Some of the site's selections include: In an interview with The New York Times, Cade cited these selections as her favorite films of each decade from the 1920s to the 1970s:[8] Maya Cade has received the following awards and nominations: