Milestone Films is a small but mighty distribution company dedicated to discovering works that have been lost to history, restoring them and reintroducing them to anyone willing to watch. It has been run out of the New Jersey home of Amy Heller and Dennis Doros for the last 25 years, but now both are preparing to retire.
“One of the things we’ve come to realize is that we are not immortal,” Heller said. As the company’s sole workers, “we are it. It’s the two of us and we want it to continue.”
How to keep it going after they step down is something they’ve been discussing for a decade, and now they’ve hit on a novel solution. They’re giving the company away, to Maya Cade, the noted programmer behind the Black Film Archive.
Heller and Doros said that last summer they had discussed with Cade, who volunteered herself, the idea of simply handing over their company.
“When we met Maya, we just thought, ‘Oh, well, we found her,’” Heller said. “We found the person who we really love and trust and can enthusiastically make this move.”
Heller and Doros started Milestone Films in 1990 in their one-bedroom New York apartment shortly after marrying. Since then, it has grown into an internationally recognized distributor that helps bring lost or little-seen films back to prominence. For the last 18 years, the company has been focused on work by and about directors who are Black, Native Americans, L.G.B.T.Q. or women — artists from segments of the population that are underrepresented in the canon.
Milestone’s best-known titles include the Charles Brunett masterpiece “Killer of Sheep” (1978), a portrait of a working-class Black family in Los Angeles that was rereleased last month in a restored version; Kathleen Collins’s “Losing Ground” (1982), which the Times critic Manohla Dargis praised as a radical rom-com; and Bridgett Davis’s “Naked Acts” (1996), a dramedy about an actress with a dark past who struggles with committing to a nude scene in a film.
“Naked Acts” was brought to Milestone in 2022 by Cade, a former Criterion Collection employee who also works as a film programmer and consultant on Black movies for distribution. Cade started the digital archive, which adds contextual language to Black cinema history, in 2021, following nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Her work soon caught the attention of Doros. They began talking weekly, forming a friendship, then a working relationship.
Speaking from her home in Los Angeles last month, Cade, 31 said that this moment of transition had found her in a state of peace.
“When you walk in your purpose, things align,” she said. “I feel very happy that I feel that I’m walking in my purpose and that I am entrusted with the legacy of Black filmmakers and people who are committed to filmmaking as truth. It’s an honor.”
The company Cade will inherit has been profitable almost consistently for the last eight years, Heller and Doros said. But its ownership transition comes amid steady changes in how movies are watched and discussions about canons — what should be included and who makes those choices. Milestone Films, under Cade’s direction, will join a short list of Black-run distributors including Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing and Mypheduh Films, started by Halie Gerima, Shirikiana Aina and Selome Gerima.
The weight of the moment is not lost on Cade, who sees the changing of the guard at Milestone as an opportunity to make inroads with often overlooked communities and to help filmmakers reach their goals.
“I feel like Black Film Archive raised awareness of filmmakers and Milestone Films gives me the ability to not just have awareness of these filmmakers but protect, preserve, acquire, insure funds are in the hands of filmmakers,” she said.
The transition will take time. There are details to iron out and materials to transfer. Heller and Doros estimate it will take roughly a year to fully hand over the company to Cade, who has been mulling over how to tap into a community-driven distribution model. Studying the success of Tyler Perry, the Hollywood impresario and studio owner whose works once thrived on the secondary market as bootlegs, might be the key, Cade said.
“What does it mean to have aunties and people excited about home video distribution?” she asked. “In modern context, the home video is the closest you can have to owning a film in a specific format. What does it mean to get Black people very excited about that? And what are some ways that Milestone can reach them?”
Around this time in 2026, Cade will be running two companies simultaneously. She knows there will be challenges but is optimistic. In her first year at the helm of Milestone, she plans to release one or two films as she finds her footing.
She will lead with what she describes as “care work,” establishing relationships with Black filmmakers and reinforcing the connections that made Milestone a success.
“Knowing that this is the home of Charles Burnett, Kathleen Collins, that isn’t something that you can simply rebuild,” she said.
Heller and Doros say their work at Milestone has been personal and political. “Working with Maya and seeing her carry this forward, that aligns with our belief system,” Heller said.
They plan to stick around as long as Cade needs them. “With a little luck, we’ll stay on the planet and be available when she has questions,” Heller said. “We hope to be able to have that deep knowledge when she needs it.”
