Stefani Saintonge

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Stefani Saintonge is a Haitian American filmmaker, editor, and educator. She is a member of the New Negress Film Society and helped to co-create their annual Black Women’s Film Conference. She is also an essential contributor to Elissa Blount Moorhead’s and Bradford Young’s collaborative 4-screen installation Back and Song (2019). A lot of her work focuses on women and daily life. In an interview with Seen Magazine, Saintonge explains: “women’s processes are important to me and they’re something that shows up a lot in my work. I’m always going to like those quotidian moments of exchange amongst women because of my own interests.”[1]  This might be a reason she makes sure her presence is felt in her work. Her film, Fucked Like A Star (2018), won Best Experimental Film and Favorite Experimental Film at the Black Star Film Festival, along with awards from Indie Grits, and the New Orleans Film Festival.

In a conversation with liquid blackness about Fucked Like A Star, artist Noah Travis Phillips has compared her editing work to collage: “One thing the video does really well, that I also love collage for, is the ability to have multiple spaces/distances/scales present simultaneously or right next to one another.”[2] Approaching collage as a kind of psychotechnology and a way of thinking through things, combining and experimenting, Saintonge builds on the intimacy that is possible when focusing on what John Akomfrah (and, after him, Arthur Jafa) has described as “affective proximities,” which she practices as a mode of intimacy, a nearness activated by choosing to be near the other. In turn, energies are cumulative and spurious: they are informational and emotive; ekphrastic and ecstatic. Although energy dissipates into the ethers, it never disappears, never ceases to exist. It builds up storms that are ultimately undeniable,[3] yet, energy is often invisible, and therefore more difficult to both account for and critique.[4]

Collage offers a framework that highlights the liberatory possibilities embedded in the very act of editing. Against the established approach that values the invisibility of the editor, whereby the cut is doing its best work when the editor’s presence is not noticeable, Saintonge’s intentionality as editor is made apparent. And against a labor history that relies on the gendered nature of this labor, given that editing has been predominantly done by women, and whereby it’s women’s labor that is applauded for its invisibility, we ask, instead: What would be applauded about film editing if its history were male-dominated? In Stefani Saintonge’s work, the edits are noticeable. The labor is not invisible, the touch of the editor is present, and the cuts are remarkable. It might be the flash of an image that disrupts, quick durational changes that either speed up or slow down, or changes in scale, overlays, and multiple use of frame sizes side by side. In an interview with Seen Magazine, Lendl Tellington writes “This collaborative process can make it difficult to distinguish whose voice sculpts the film. But when Stefani Saintonge is behind a cut, you feel it”.[5]

For example, In Deana Lawson’s Centropy (2021), with cinematography by Bradford Young and produced by the filmmaking collective Ummah Chroma, Stefani Saintonge’s editing generates new energy sources in the film. The stitches of what Phillips describes as a “conductive thread” come in short 1 to 3-second bursts. The repetition of these cuts throughout the film creates a pattern that is informational, emotive, and ecstatic at once, leading us to new moments of discovery in Deana Lawson’s practice and filmography. This editing technique is also found in T (2019) by Keisha Rae Witherspoon and Liberty (2019) by Faren Humes. Saintonge’s hand is also felt in the propensity for putting multiple scales side by side. In Fucked Like a Star, the working female ants, the working women braiders, a couple on a bike are all overlaid with images of outer space – the same overlay/dissolve that also opens the film Centropy.

If collage is both a way of thinking and a way of practicing that invites disparate elements to come into proximity, then Saintonge embraces this sensibility towards experimenting with modes of congregation and assembly in and as film.

[1] Tellington, Lendl. “The Language of Cinema. An Interview with Stefani Saintonge.” The Language of Cinema. Seen Magazine/ Black Star Film Festival, 2021.

[2] Noah Travis Phillips (artist and scholar) in conversation with Anna Winter about Stephanie Saintonge’s film Fucked Like A Star, Instagram messenger, June 23, 2023.

[3] Phillips, Noah T. "Not Yet Titled (Energy) 2021." www.noahtravisphillips.com. Accessed June 23, 2023. https://www.noahtravisphillips.com/HTMLCSSNTP/energy/energy.html.

[4] Some of these insights were gathered during an informal conversation between Noah Travis Phillips and Anna Winter. Google Meets, June 23, 2023.

[5] Tellington, Lendl. “The Language of Cinema. An Interview with Stefani Saintonge.” The Language of Cinema. Seen Magazine/ Black Star Film Festival, 2021.

SELECTED WORKS

Director

Fucked Like a Star (2018), director         

ESSENCE's Black Girl Magic: Gio (2017)

Babay, Papa Rose! (2016) (in post-production) writer, director

MACHO (2015), dir. Faren Humes, producer

La Tierra de los Adioses (2014) director, DP

Seventh Grade (2014) writer, director

La Bolsa (2013) director, DP   

Editor

Visions in the Blackness (2024), dir. Yvonne Michelle Shirley

The Debutantes (2024), dir. Contessa Gayles

Seeking: Mapping Our Gullah Geechee Story (2023), dir. Julie Dash

Negra, Yo Soy Bella (2023), dir. Vashni Korin

Centropy (2021), dir. Deana Lawson

Killing in Thy Name (2021), dir. The Ummah Chroma

For Our Girls: A Conversation with Black Women, PBS (2021) dir. Michèle Stephenson & Imani Dennison

Amyra León: Strange Grace (2020) dir. Malika Zouhali-Worrall

Damon Davis: Apologue for the Darkest Gods (2020) dir. Elissa Blount Moorhead

T (2019) dir. Keisha Rae Witherspoon

Back and Song (2019) dir. Elissa Blount Moorhead and Bradford Young

Untitled (2019) dir. Bradford Young

Frame by Frame (2019) dir. Yvonne Michelle Shirley

Liberty Director's Cut (2019) dir. Faren Humes

James Reese Europe and the Absence of Ruin (2018) dir. Jason Moran

Untitled (M*A*S*H), (2018), dir. Simone Leigh

Presentations and Conferences

Black Women's Film Conference, New Negress Film Society, Virtual (2020)

Black Women's Film Conference, New Negress Film Society, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2019)

SCREEN: BlackStar Film Festival at MOCA, Los Angeles, CA (2019)

Haïti-Vidéo-Poèmes: courts films poétiques et sensoriels, Brussels, Belgium (2019)

BlackStar “Best of the Fest,” Colgate University, Hamilton NY (2018)

Sexual Politics, Fabulated Pasts, Speculated Futures, Brown University, Providence, RI (2018)

American Fringe, La Cinémathèque Française, Paris, France (2018)

The Future is Afro-Femme, Institute of Contemporary Art, Richmond, VA (2018)

BAM Women at Work: The Domestic is Not Free, BAM Cinema, Brooklyn, NY (2018)

Black Queer Brooklyn on Film, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (2017)

An Evening with the New Negress Film Society, Anthology Film Archives, NY, NY (2017)    

Demystifying the Process of Commissioned Work, Art is Labor, Queens, NY (2017)

Sanité Bélair Women's Empowerment Series, New York University, NY, NY (2017)

Feminist Film Festival, Layered Gaze Film Festival, NY, NY (2017)

New Negress Film Society: I am a Negress of Noteworthy Talent, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, MI

In Real Life: Film & Video, Screenings / "How To Love a Watermelon Woman," Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2016)

Radical Black Magicalism: Black Girl Magic & All That Good 'ish, Afrikana Independent Film Festival, Richmond, VA (2016)

Black Radical Imagination: In Conversation, Cooper Union, NY, NY (2016)

Guest Speaker, YWCA NYC Potential to Power Girls Symposium, NY, NY (2016)  

The Black Women's Film Festival, South Dallas Cultural Center (Texas), Dallas, TX (2016)

New Negress Film Society Short Film Program, Wagner College, Staten Island, NY (2016)

New Negress Film Society Short Film Program, Indiana University Cinema, Bloomington, IN (2015)

Explorations: Irresistible Resistance, Made in NY Media Center, Brooklyn, NY (2015)

SELECTED INTERVIEWS

Tellington, Lendl. “The Language of Cinema: An Interview with Stefani Saintonge.” Seen. Spring 2021.

"Ja'tovia Gary and Stefani Saintonge Bring 'New Negress' Short Films to IU Cinema." Black Film Center & Archive. 2015 

Kreyolicious. "Stefani Saintonge, Writer and Filmmaker" Kreyolicious. 2015

SELECTED REVIEWS

Diaz Lasa, Diego. “African American Film Festival returns to the Kravis Center for 18th year.” Palm Beach Daily News. February 13, 2024.

“Webinar: Film Collectives and the New Negress Film Society.” Film Quarterly. November 28, 2023.

Bosselman, Hailey. “Rooftop Films 2021 Grant Awarded to Film About Radical Liberation (variety.com).” Variety. June 25, 2021

Hobdy, Dominique. “13 Black Coming-of-Age Films You'll Watch Again and Again.” Essence. October 27, 2020.

Mercer, Michelle. "A Century Later, An Illuminated Eulogy For A Jazz Pioneer."  NPR. December 7, 2018

Suh, Elissa. “Resilience Shines On at BAMcinématek’s ‘Women At Work’ Series.” Mubi. November 2, 2018

Lapin, Andrew. "Why Sundance, SXSW, and Funders Are Falling in Love With This Tiny Collective of Black Women Filmmakers." IndieWire. March 24, 2017

"12 Films to Watch or Watch Out For." Dynamic Africa. February 22, 2016 

Nastasi, Alison. "50 Films by Women You Can Watch Online Right Now." Flavorwire. January 20, 2016

O’Leary, Barbara Ann. "Seventh Grade directed by Stefani Saintonge." Directed by Women. February 14, 2016

"Seventh Grade' is an Unmissable Short Film on Black Girlhood." Shine for Harriet. October 18, 2015

"10 Coming of Age Films by Black Women." Super.selected. June 23, 2015 

Dorval, Sophia. “A Different Story: The State of Black Immigrant Tales in the Digital Age.” Highbrow Magazine. July 14, 2014

AWARDS/HONORS

Rooftop Films Grant (2021)

Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2021)

Fucked Like a Star, Experimental Grit Award, Indie Grits Film Festival (2019)

Fucked Like a Star, Best Experimental Film, Blackstar Film Festival (2018)

Fucked Like a Star, Favorite Experimental Film, Blackstar Film Festival (2018)

Fucked Like a Star, Special Jury Mention New Orleans Film Festival (2018)

Jerome Foundation Travel Grant (2018)

Bronx Council on the Arts BRIO Arts Award (2018)

Artist in Residence, Haiti Cultural Exchange (2018)

Seventh Grade, ESSENCE Discovery Award (2014)

Seventh Grade, NBC Universal Finalist (2014)

Seventh Grade, 2nd Place Short North Carolina Black Film Festival (2014)

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

Collage and Assemblage Art

Phillips, Noah Travis. “Not Yet Titled (Energy),” 2021. www.noahtravisphillips.com/HTMLCSSNTP/energy/energy/html.

Aranke, Sampada. “Blackouts and Other Visual Escapes.” Art Journal 79, no. 4 (2020): 62-75.

O'Meally, Robert G., ed. The Romare Bearden Reader. Duke University Press, 2019.

Campbell, Mary Schmidt. An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Fensham, Rachel. “On Choreography: Femmage, collage, assemblage.” Performance Research 23, no. 4-5 (2018): 266-272.

Jones, Kellie. South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2017.

Dezeuze, Anna. “Assemblage, bricolage, and the practice of everyday life.” Art Journal 67, no. 1 (2008): 31-37. 

Mercer, Kobena. “Romare Bearden, 1964: Collage as Kunstwollen.” In Kobena Mercer, ed., Cosmopolitan Modernisms. Institute for International Visual Art and MIT Press, 2005, 124-45.

Ellison, Ralph. “The Art of Romare Bearden.” The Massachusetts Review 18, no. 4 (1977): 673-680.

Seitz, William Chapin, Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY)., Dallas Museum for contemporary arts (Tex.), and San Francisco Museum of Art. The Art of Assemblage. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1961.

Montage and Affective Proximities

Malavassi, Paola. “Arthur Jafa Face It: The ‘Affective Proximity’ of Imagery.” Flash Art 53, no. 329 (2020): 72.

Gad, Amira, and Joseph Constable, eds. A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions. Serpentine Galleries, 2018.

Akomfrah, J., and E. Eshun. 2017. “To Make Figures and Subjects Walk into a Frame: John Akomfrah in Conversation with Ekow Eshun.” In John Akomfrah: Purple, edited by L. Hasham, 33–43. London: Barbican.