Cinematographers Arthur Jafa ("Daughters
of the Dust," "Crooklyn," "Dreams Are Colder Than Death," "Florida Water") and Malik
Sayeed ("He Got Game," "Belly") have partnered with Baltimore based curator, lecturer
and exhibition designer Elissa Blount-Moorhead, to create a new independent film
studio and production company, TNEG.

The goal, according, to Ms. Blount-Moorhead,
is to develop and produce new black independent films, but films that will also “push what we understand to be new black
cinema and to create not just new narratives and but also new aesthetics and
technical parameters within black cinema."

And they feel that the time now is
right to start up a new studio and production company because of the rapidly changing landscape in terms of production
and distribution especially, which they feel is a great advantage for independent
cinema and for filmmakers of color.

"I feel like independent film in general is becoming more well-regarded
and more supported. If you just think back 20 years there was no IFC, or things
like that. There are more alternative platforms now, like Netflix, that are now
commissioning and financing work that will go directly through their
channels—those are the ways you are able to provide an outlet for people and to
hopefully allow filmmakers to create a voice that is not contingent on
mainstream and Hollywood expectations."

To read more about TNEG and the trio’s plans, read an interview with Ms. Bount-Moorhead here.