Saturday, 14 November, 1 pm

Documentary by Maya Annik Bedward, as part of the Weird Weekender International Film Festival Stuttgart

From the flickering screens of Hollywood horror films to the haunted sugar cane fields of colonial Haiti – Black Zombie uncovers the hidden origins of the zombie and restores it as a symbol of survival and spiritual resistance.

This documentary takes a look behind the blood-soaked scenes of modern horror to uncover the hidden and unsettling origins of the zombie. 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 self-determination was reinterpreted as an object of fear, whilst Black spiritual traditions were distorted, sensationalised and erased.

Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie from colonial Haiti to present-day Hollywood, shedding light on cult films such as White Zombie, Night of the Living Dead and The Serpent and the Rainbow through archive footage, cinéma vérité scenes and interviews with cultural historians, artists and genre legends such as Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini and Zandashé Brown.