After hitting the road with Public Enemy, Hub filmmaker returns to Roxbury

“Culture is based upon everyone getting out of their house, hanging out and doing something,” he says.

And film festival culture, particularly the kind that has given rise to the RFF, offers an opportunity for communities of color to do just that.

“Film festivals are really the only way that indie filmmakers get to see their movies on the big screen,” he explains. “Film festivals, certainly the big ones, are not known for showing movies of color. And if they do show movies of color, they show the most degrading, embarrassing things on the planet, stuff like ‘Hustle n’ Flow.’”

With “Welcome to the Terrordome,” Patton-Spruill says he aims to combat the trend of degrading portrayals of black culture — just as Public Enemy as a musical entity has sought to offer a positive alternative, a model of black counterculture combating American institutional racism, both within hip-hop and in the larger society.

Patton-Spruill, who has directed most of Public Enemy’s music videos since 2003, has toured the world with the group. His film elegantly chronicles their fearless and unflagging commitment to social progress. It also shows their musical and political influence on a broad spectrum of artists, ranging from rappers Run DMC, Talib Kweli and the Beastie Boys to rockers Henry Rollins, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Bono of U2.

Most of all, it captures the intensity of Public Enemy’s live performances, featuring no less than 11 classic numbers.

The undeniable treat of the film, however, is Patton-Spruill’s ability to get inside the outfit, probing the tight but taut, often hilarious and always combustible connections that make Public Enemy work.

Witness the notorious Flavor Flav, likely most familiar (perhaps unfortunately) to younger viewers as the star of the reality dating show “Flavor of Love.” Amid all his mischievous antics, both on-stage and off, Flav evinces a kind of chaotic musical genius.

On the other end of the spectrum stands the straight-laced Professor Griff, head of the group’s Security of the First World (S1W) security team, also on-stage and off, as well as the constant torchbearer of Public Enemy’s more radical, revolutionary side.

Forever in-between is Chuck D, Public Enemy’s MC and frontman, he of the iconic, prophetic baritone. While sometimes acting as the mediator between the disparate drives of Flav and Griff, Chuck comes off as the film’s biggest hero, with his unflagging convictions, compassionate wisdom and often-profound insights.      

For his part, Patton-Spruill humbly minimizes his own explicit presence in the film. Eschewing techniques like third-person narration or title card chapter-headings, Patton-Spruill chooses to tell Public Enemy’s story by organizing the footage principally according to a given musical segment, allowing his interviewees, the characters’ interactions and the music speak for themselves.

The result is a no-frills hip-hop documentary, low on budget but high on quality, that manages to be accessible to hardcore fans and the uninitiated alike.

Like Chuck D, whom he calls his hero, Patton-Spruill is also a man of convictions, wisdom and insight, a fact to which his family’s sustainable urban lifestyle attests.

“We shoot the … ‘Garden Girl’ TV show because we’re trying to help do our part to save the planet and teach people how to live on less, create their own and not be dependent on oil prices and other things that are out there destroying the economy,” the filmmaker says.

“In a few years,” he adds, “everyone in the city will be living like this.”

“Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome” screens at the Roxbury Film Festival at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 1, at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, located at 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston. That evening will also feature a question and answer session with Cynthia Gordy of Essence magazine. A second screening is scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 3, at 2:30 p.m. at Wentworth Institute of Technology’s Annex Auditorium, located at 550 Huntington Avenue, Boston.