Photos: BLACK ZOMBIE Documentary to Open in Theaters, Director Set for Press Days
The film features interviews with Slash, Tom Savini, Tananarive Due and Zandashé Brown among others.
Winner
Northern Excellence Award – Fantasia International Film Festival 2026
Official Selection
SXSW Film Festival 2026
Hot Docs 2026
Fantasia International Film Festival 2026
Black Star Film Festival 2026
Synopsis
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, reconsidering iconic films like WHITE ZOMBIE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown. Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, BLACK ZOMBIE exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture's most profitable monsters.
Canada | 2026 | 90mins | In English, French, Haitian Creole
About the Filmmaker
Maya Annik Bedward 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 will open at Quad Cinemas in New York and Laemmle's Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles on September 11, with a national rollout to follow courtesy of Kino Lorber. More on the film's trailer and poster release can be found in BroadwayWorld's earlier coverage.
