Bio:
Resita is a North Carolina-born, Chicago-based independent filmmaker and artist. Resita launched her career in journalism at WTVD-TV in Raleigh, NC, and WCTI-TV in New Bern, NC as a multimedia journalist and news reporter. Resita transitioned from news media to documentary film in 2018, where she was named a Chicago Filmmakers Digital Media Production Grantee for her film, Regrowth, which is about food and environmental justice on the West Side of Chicago. Resita has also worked with Kartemquin Films, one of the leading documentary film houses in the Midwest, as the Impact Producer on their Emmy-nominated docu-series produced with The Marshall Project, We Are Witnesses. She is the director of Freedom Hill, a documentary about the environmental racism that is washing away the first town chartered by Black people in the nation.
Artist Statement:
Resita Cox’s films are a poetic portrayal of her community’s irrepressible spirit and resilience in the face of racism. Her documentary film work is people-based, meaning it not only features unique, personal stories but also prioritizes relationships and is constantly working to reimagine an equitable filmmaking model. Resita tells stories within her communities, alongside her communities. By doing this, she aims to reimage [as much as possible] the power hierarchy that exists in filmmaking between director/creator and participant.
Resita uses documentary filmmaking as a means to archive the Black experience. She calls her body of work a ‘Black archive.’ If Black people don’t preserve their own history, it dissolves or is rewritten by people who adjust the narrative to suit them. Resita is interested in retrieving Black history that has been lost (or purposely buried) and using documentary film as a medium to connect the past, present, and future. Her films challenge traditional, linear story structures by combining poetry, observational film, written text, sound, and archival materials to create a visual and audio experience that mimics the layered complexities of the Black, lived experience. Resita strives to document the resiliency of Blackness in hopes that it not only gives birth to more resilience but most importantly, motivates people to take action.
