Cinema of Transgression

{{Short description|Underground film movement}}

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The Cinema of Transgression is a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a New York City–based underground film movement, consisting of a loose-knit group of artists using shock value and black humor in their films.[http://dangerousminds.net/comments/shock_value_new_yorks_underground_cinema Shock Value: New York’s underground ‘Cinema of Transgression’-Dangerous Minds]{{cite book | title=Punk Rock: So What?: The Cultural Legacy of Punk | publisher=Routledge | last1=Sabin |first1=Roger | year=2002 | pages=69–72 | isbn=9780203448403 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u1cDUc9_LC4C&pg=PA69}} Key players in this movement were Zedd, Kembra Pfahler, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Jon Moritsugu, Manuel DeLanda, David Wojnarowicz, Richard Kern, and Lydia Lunch, who in the late 1970s and mid-1980s began to make very low-budget films using cheap 8 mm cameras.

Zedd outlined his philosophy on the Cinema of Transgression in The Cinema of Transgression Manifesto, published under the name Orion Jeriko in the zine The Underground Film Bulletin (1984–90).{{cite web |url=http://feastofhateandfear.com/archives/zedd.html |title=The Cinema of Transgression Manifesto |last1=Zedd |first1=Nick |date=1985 |access-date=7 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022183928/http://feastofhateandfear.com/archives/zedd.html |archive-date=22 October 2014 |url-status=dead }}

Cinema of Transgression continues to heavily influence underground filmmakers. In 2000, the British Film Institute showed a retrospective of the movement's work introduced by those involved in the production of the original video films.{{cite web | url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b83db7f51 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202061827/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b83db7f51 | url-status=dead | archive-date=February 2, 2017 | title=The Cinema of Transgression 1984–90. |last1=Zedd |first1=Nick |date=2000 }}