In this week’s episode of the Black Girl Nerds podcast, we invite filmmaker Maya Annik Bedward to talk about her new documentary Black Zombie.
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. Maya is an Afro-Caribbean-Canadian film director whose work blends history, resistance, and pop culture through bold, genre-bending storytelling. Her work has screened at TIFF, Hot Docs, BlackStar, and the New Orleans Film Festival. Her credits include the short films The Haircut(2018) and Why We Fight(2021), as well as the TV series LIDO TV(2022) and BLK: An Origin Story(2022). She is a founding member of the Black Screen Office, championing stories that center Black creativity and power.
Black Zombie premieres in theaters in NY and Los Angeles on Sept 11th.
Host: Jamie
Music by: Sammus
Edited by: Jamie Broadnax
