Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983)

Synopsis
Maybe you sweated over a typewriter or word processor when you worked on your master's thesis in college. But Spike Lee attended the film school of New York University (under the tutelage of Martin Scorsese, by the way), and was thus required to submit a completed film as his thesis. Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads was filmed in and around Lee's Brooklyn neighborhood. Traces of the controversy and outrageousness of Lee's later feature-length projects will be found herein; it's a fascinating up-close-and-personal look at a black-owned business, and the unvarnished views of a racially polarized society as delivered by the shop's customers and employees. The film won Spike Lee the Student Award of the Motion Picture Academy, setting in motion a still thriving, still dazzling career. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide