Black Panther doc director: 'They had a new look, a new attitude'

The Black Panther movement garnered mass support beyond its constituency and helped shaped the way the USA dealt with its civil rights issues at the time.

"Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution" a new documentary film with archive footage and interviews with key players premiered at the Sheffield Doc Fest, the director Stanley Nelson compared the movement to a comet saying "it went up and fizzled out very quickly".

Nelson added that the Panthers influence went beyond their political ambitions.

"Their lasting achievement was not the political change that they wanted but really kind of a cultural shift; the Panthers had a new look, a new attitude which we still have in America," he said.