This essay examines the New Negress Film Society, a collective of Black women and non-binary filmmakers who create community, spaces, and films that reimagine cultural productions that have traditionally exploited Black communities. Founded in 2013, the genesis and evolution of the New Negress Film Society reveals the individual, institutional, and industrial challenges that impact Black women’s filmmaking as well as the ways in which black feminist community engenders collectivizing. Samantha Sheppard considers broader traditions of formal and informal black feminist social movements and film collective practice while drawing attention to how New Negress Film Society operates deliberately on the margins and counter to industry-focused and mainstream routes for black cinema.
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Fall 2023
Research Article|
September 01 2023
A Profound Edge: Collectivism and the New Negress Film Society
Samantha N. Sheppard
Samantha N. Sheppard
Samantha N. Sheppard is an associate professor of cinema and media studies in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. She is the author of Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodiment, and Critical Muscle Memory on Screen (University of California Press, 2020). She was named a 2021 Academy Film Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
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Film Quarterly (2023) 77 (1): 25–37.
Citation
Samantha N. Sheppard; A Profound Edge: Collectivism and the New Negress Film Society. Film Quarterly 1 September 2023; 77 (1): 25–37. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2023.77.1.25
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