Click here to register for the virtual screening on Crowdcast

The New Negress Film Society is 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. This selection of films organized by Yvonne Shirley and Stefani Saintonge–members of NNFS–is committed to centering radical Black women's voices.

Miasia: The Nature of Experience 
By Yvonne Michelle Shirley
(USA, 2017, 30 min)
Brooklyn teen, Miasia Clark, is just a few weeks shy of presenting at the first ever Black Girl Movement National Conference. As the event approaches, we watch her prepare with her activist group, Girls for Gender Equity. She guides us through her everyday worlds, wrestling with the personal, the political, and the fight to self-determine.

F**ked Like a Star
By Stefani Saintonge
(USA, 2018, 8 min) 
Fucked Like A Star puts a macro lens on the skillful work of women; braiding hair, crushing spices and threading fabric. The continuous motion of their uninterrupted activity sets a tempo that joins women from Haiti and New Orleans into one harmonious symphony of plaiting, grinding and sewing. This film won Best and Favorite Experimental Film at BlackStar Film Festival in 2018.

Seventh Grade
By Stefani Saintonge
(USA, 11 min, 2014
When a raunchy rumor threatens her best friend's reputation, a girl is forced to embrace adolescence.

Yvonne Michelle Shirley is a filmmaker based in Newark, NJ, working in both documentary and narrative forms.  In 2016, her film Flowers, won Best Short Film in the HBO Short Film Competition at the 2016 American Black Film Festival. Her documentary short, Miasia: The Nature of Experience premiered at the 2017 BlackStar Film Festival, and has screened throughout the country. She produced and directed the digital series, Frame by Frame, for Topic.  The five episode series premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.  She produced the Sundance 2019 documentary short, Black 14, directed by Darius Clark Monroe and executive produced by Spike Lee. Yvonne has directed and produced non-fiction work for T Magazine, Nike, and AFROPUNK.  In 2019 she was named to DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 list. She was 2021 Impact Partners Documentary Producing Fellow, and a 2021 Catapult Research Grantee for her upcoming project, To The Unknown.  In 2018, Yvonne co-founded The Newarkive, an initiative engaging with the archives of community members and grassroots organizations to share imagery and stories of and by Newark's intergenerational communities.  She is now Director of the Community Media Center at Express Newark, a center for socially engaged art at Rutgers University-Newark.

Stefani Saintonge is a Haitian-American filmmaker, educator and editor who won the juried and audience award at BlackStar Film Festival for her short film, Fucked Like a Star. Her work has screened internationally including at Edinburgh International Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Hammer Museum and the Smithsonian African American Museum. As an editor, she’s worked with acclaimed filmmakers and artists including Julie Dash, Simone Leigh, Deana Lawson, Bradford Young and Jason Moran. Her edited works have screened at Sundance Film Festival, Berlinale, Tribeca Film Festival, Guggenheim Museum and PBS. As a member of NEW NEGRESS FILM SOCIETY, she co-created their annual Black Women's Film Conference. She has received support from SFFILM, Jerome Foundation and Bronx Arts Council, participated in New York Film Festival's Artist Academy,  and served as an artist in residence with Haiti Cultural Exchange.