Cauleen Smith is a Southern Californian, born and raised in Riverside, and teaches at UCLA. But she was forever marked by the years she spent in the Bay Area, where she went to film school at San Francisco State and made one of the great low-budget indies shot in Oakland.

In 1998, she completed “Drylongso,” a lovely, unusual film about the friendship between two women, Pica (Toby Smith) and Tobi (April Barnett). Tobi is a survivor of abuse who often dresses as a man to avoid potential sexual assault, while Pica is an art student who becomes obsessed with taking Polaroid photographs of young Black men, believing they are an “endangered species.”

The film was partially inspired by experiences Smith had working at theHaight-Ashbury Free ClinicandGlide Memorial Churchin San Francisco. It screened at Sundance and South by Southwest, and at the now defunctDockers Khakis Classically Independent Film Festivalat the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. But it never got an organized theatrical release.

In the years since, Smith became an acclaimed multimedia artist, exploring Afrofuturism and the experience of being Black in America. Her work has been shown at theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Artand theYerba Buena Center of the Arts, and in May she was the subject of a retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s annual Art & Film benefit.

A quarter of a century later, her success has renewed interest in her only feature film. “Drylongso” has been beautifully restored and is being released by the Criterion Collection on Tuesday, Aug. 29, on Blu-ray and DVD. Extras include short films from her college days in San Francisco.

Smith spoke to the Chronicle by phone from Los Angeles.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Since you were at UCLA at the time in an MFA program, why did you decide to shoot your first feature film in Oakland?

A:I moved to San Francisco in ’87 or ’88 and lived in the Mission District. Then after I graduated, I moved to West Oakland and lived on San Pablo (Avenue), and that’s where I really fell in love with that neighborhood. I realized it was just a great, really rich terrain to shoot a film. At that time in particular, it was such a lively place, so much going on and so much culture just in the neighborhood itself.

Q: What was the shoot like?

A:The city of Oakland embraced our film with open arms and gave us all the permits we needed and supported the film 100%. All we had to do was provide security for certain sites at night. That was something I was just eternally grateful for.

And, also, the community itself. The film just wouldn’t have been possible on the budget that we had to make the film without a neighborhood or community that decided that they wanted us there. We found an abandoned house and reached out to the owners, and they allowed us to occupy the house in exchange for — I believe we bought them a water heater, maybe. We were able to use the house for the entire summer and paint it.

We had some night shoots where we needed big lights and lots of power, but we didn’t have money for a generator. We knocked on doors on the block where we were shooting and asked neighbors if we could run power out of their house, and they said yes. We were shooting at 3 and 4 in the morning.

Also, I lived alone in the house at night where we were shooting with thousands of dollars worth of equipment that we rented. Not one thing was ever stolen, and I was never in any danger whatsoever. I don’t think any of that would have been possible if the community itself hadn’t decided that we were welcome and that we were wanted and that we would be protected.

这是一个投资在我们的电影中,th更有价值an a cash investment, the way that the neighborhood supported it. I’ve never forgotten it.

Q: At San Francisco State you studied with Lynn Hershman Leeson, a multimedia artist like yourself, and Larry Clark (a member of the 1970s L.A. Rebellion movement of Black filmmakers who directed “Passing Through” and was co-cinematographer of “Wattstax”), among others. That’s a pretty impressive faculty roster.

A:And then I hadAngela Davisin Black studies for a whole year learning about Black feminism! Oh, man. Yeah.

I hadLynn Hershman Leesonas a video performance art teacher. She was tough and exacting, and I learned so much from her about how to not settle and to work and rework your work until you get it right.

I hadLarry Clarkfor cinematography, also tough. Really, really demanding. He’s the one who taught me about how Fujifilm stock is so much better than Kodak when you’re dealing with skin with lots of pigmentation, and how it really brings out the color in people’s skin in a way that Kodak kind of flattens out people’s skin tone.

Those are just the amazing faculty who you might recognize their names. There were so many others, and I’m really grateful for the people there who kind of built the foundation for me, both filmmaking-wise and intellectually.

Q: How have opportunities changed for Black creators in the last 25 years or so since “Drylongso”?

A:It’s just been so great to watch. I often felt like I was reinventing the wheel because it was really difficult to access more experienced Black people in Hollywood. But now people have really built these networks and things like the Blackstar Film Festival (each August in Philadelphia, often called “the Black Sundance”). The universe for young Black creatives has really changed over the past 25 years.

Also, the Bay Area, particularly the East Bay, is still this hotbed of really progressive Black culture. Experimental, challenging and way out there ideas (are) coming out of the Bay Area in a way that I just really love to see.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com