About this Event
This screening is a part of The Philly Cinematheque, a new initiative housed in the Annenberg School for Communication. It brings a community-focused approach to an eclectic program of global film and television screenings. In doing so, it functions as both an informal gathering place and an intentional intervention to further embed cinema—as a modality, a space, and a method—in communications scholarship.
This event is co-organized with the Center for Experimental Ethnography, the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, and the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication.
About the Film
Black Zombie digs beneath the blood-soaked spectacle of modern horror to uncover the zombie’s buried and unsettling origins. Long before it became associated with flesh-eating ghouls, the zombie was a living metaphor for slavery: not a monster, but the ultimate victim of colonial power. A symbol of stolen agency was recast as an object of fear, while Black spiritual traditions were distorted, sensationalized, and erased. Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie from colonial Haiti to contemporary Hollywood, reconsidering iconic films like White Zombie, Night of the Living Dead, and The Serpent and the Rainbow alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown. Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, Black Zombie exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture’s most profitable monsters.
About the Discussant
Maya is an Afro-Caribbean-Canadian filmmaker whose work blends history, resistance, and pop culture through bold, genre-bending storytelling. Her work has screened at festivals including SXSW, TIFF, Hot Docs, BlackStar, and the New Orleans Film Festival. Her credits include The Haircut (2018), Why We Fight (2021), LIDO TV (2022), BLK: An Origin Story (2022), and Farm Crime (2023). She received Canadian Screen Award nominations for her directing work on LIDO TV and Farm Crime, and won a Canadian Screen Award for producing work on Patty vs. Patty. Maya is a founding member of the Black Screen Office, championing stories that centre Black creativity and power.
Event venue & nearby stays
Annenberg School for Communication, 3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.