"It's the best example of what the filmmakers are looking for," Ms. Galbraith said.
Disney is only the most famous example of a filmmaker who relied on the public domain to expand the art of film.
Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," a found-footage recap of the naturalist Timothy Treadwell's death by bear mauling, is an intriguing example of a filmmaker skirting the abyss: a humanely mediated snuff film centered on a man we know is about to die.
In Variety, Scott Foundas wrote that the film was a "superior example of fearless filmmakers in exactly the right place at the right time", and likely the best of a string of documentaries that have shone the light on US involvement in South America.
Michael Bay's "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi," which details the 2012 attack on Americans in Libya, is an example of the polarizing work of a filmmaker who is simply too much a part of our times to ignore.
The example of European filmmakers who had immigrated, such as Fritz Lang (who had been in Hollywood since the mid-thirties), Robert Siodmak, and Jean Renoir also helped, as did, ultimately, the 1948 Supreme Court decision that sparked the rise of independent producers and led to the films of the freewheeling fifties.
But "Pariah" is important, not simply as a promising directorial debut, but also as the most visible example of the mini-movement of young black filmmakers telling stories that complicate assumptions about what "black film" can be by embracing thorny issues of identity, alienation and sexuality.
For example, Michael Jackson's face could be overlaid with the essence of the filmmaker Michael Moore's, creating a Mooreish-looking Jackson.
The finished movie remains a glistening example of an American filmmaker turning pulp fiction into pop art.
Examples like these achieved an even greater impact than many original scores because they formed an organic part of the filmmaker's conception.
