Writer/Director, Zandashé Brown
On Sunday, October 22, Baton Rouge Gallery is honored to host a screening and discussion of the new short film by Zandashé Brown, Benediction. As with all Sundays@4 performances, this will be free and open to the public.
Based in New Orleans, Zandashé Brown is a writer/director born-and-bred in and inspired by Southern Louisiana. Thus far, her work raises a Black femme lens to the tradition of Southern Gothic horror by exploring the axis of catharsis, spirituality, and Black Southern experience. She is an alum of the 2020 Tribeca Chanel Women's Filmmaker Program with her upcoming short film, "Benediction," and an alum of the 2022 Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs with her feature-in-development, "The Matriarch," which is also the recipient of the 2022 Sundance Institute Horror Fellowship, supported by the K Period Media Foundation Fund. Zandashé’s work has been supported by Kickstarter, Create Louisiana, the New Orleans Video Access Center, and the New Orleans Film Society, where she has since programmed for the Academy Award Qualifying New Orleans Film Festival and served as Artist Engagement and Programming Manager.
“BENEDICTION pays an homage to the complicated, but significant place that the Black Southern Baptist church has held in Black American spirituality. The power of touch, testimony, and having a witness to one’s pain. While it may have struck me as odd as a child, I’ve grown to appreciate the space that the Black church has made for release -- it’s a place where people in pain (and in joy) are granted wild permission to leap, shout, wail, dance, and cry. Where someone in pain can be embraced by their community and healing is a shared responsibility.”
