It's great news for cinephiles, as after more than six years of toiling, Charles Burnett's fantastic Killer of Sheep will enjoy its first-ever proper theatrical distribution this spring, from Milestone Films. One of the more acclaimed and influential movies by an African-American filmmaker, Killer of Sheep was one of the first 50 films to be selected for the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, and was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of its 100 Essential Films. But, chiefly due to music licensing problems and rights issues, the film has very rarely been publically screened, and then only typically in film school settings and occasional retrospective presentations.

On occasion of the movie's 30th anniversary, Milestone cleared all the rights, and will present the UCLA Film & Television Archive's dazzling 35mm restoration of this landmark film. Killer of Sheep will first screen at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, and then premiere in New York at the IFC Center on March 30, and in Los Angeles at the Nuart Theatre on April 6. Set in Watts in the mid-1970s, the movie centers on a sensitive, blue-collar dreamer (Henry Gayle Sanders) haunted by his work at a slaughterhouse, and his struggles to keep his family together, and keep from becoming detached and numb. For more information, click here.