Setting out to challenge persistent myths around black male sexuality, the film combines genre conventions with social commentary creating a highly symbolic exploration of the psycho-sexual politics of the time. Although marketed as a Blaxploitation film (and released on video with the title Soul Vengeance), Fanaka's first feature is a subversive revenge tale of an African American man humiliated and framed by a corrupt white establishment. Fanaka's cult film plays out the revenge as a commentary on white fears of inter-racial relationships, masculine insecurity and the persistent objectification of black bodies.

Jamaa Fanaka was a singular figure at UCLA and he created some of the most powerful films of the period. While still a student he wrote, directed and produced three features that got theatrical distribution, concluding with the first in the now classic Penitentiary series. Made with a minimal budget against the advice of his tutors, Welcome Home, Brother Charles was made with a crew drawn from ULCA including fellow students Charles Burnett and Ben Caldwell. With raw and visceral energy the film inverts genre conventions to create a highly expressive and unexpected psycho sexual.

dir. Jamaa Fanaka, USA 1975, 35mm, colour, 91 min

Welcome Home, Brother Charles is a brutal and at times fantastic allegory of endemic racism in America in the 1970s.