Esteemed filmmaker Spike Lee received a Tribute Award at the Mill Valley Film Festival this weekend. While on stage with Oakland-based actor Delroy Lindo, who starred in four of Lee’s films, Lee suddenly remembered he directed the 2004 film Sucker Free City.

As the Chronicle reports, Lee was on stage with Lindo, who most recently starred in the Ryan Coogler film Sinners, when it dawned on Lee that he’d shot a film entirely in San Francisco. Struggling to remember the film’s name, Lee asked the audience to pull up IMDB.

According to a 2005 SFGate post, Sucker Free City was directed by Lee and written by San Francisco-raised Alex Tseas, of The Watchmen fame, as a pilot for a Showtime series that never came to be. SFGate writes that the film, which highlights conflicts among white, Black, Latino and Asian street gangs in San Francisco, didn’t get picked up as a series because Lee couldn’t commit to filming more than the pilot episode.

Per SFGate, the film explores the concept of displacement through various San Francisco-specific themes, including the history of the formation of Chinatown, the Navy’s divestment from Hunters Point, and artists being pushed out of the Mission.

During Saturday’s event, Lee credited his neighbor for giving him a Super 8 film camera when he was young, which determined his fate as a filmmaker.

“I say my prayers and blessings when I go to bed every night because it could have gone this way or that way,” Lee said, per the Chronicle. “It wasn’t a straight path, and if I did not go see (my neighbor) that day, I would not be here. You would never have heard Spike Lee.”

Image: Delroy Lindo and Spike Lee attend Mill Valley Film Festival Award ceremony For Lifetime Achievement: Spike Lee at Smith Rafael Film Center on October 11, 2025 in San Rafael, California. (Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images)