CYCLES (1989)
(17 minutes) 16mm color negative, fine grain print, Optical Track
Director: Zeinabu irene Davis
Grant Awarded for: Zeinabu irene Davis
Archive: Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Archive
CYCLES is an experimental film by Zeinabu irene Davis that reimagines how Black women are represented on screen. Structured around the internal rhythms of a woman’s body and the cyclical experience of menstruation, CYCLES centers its protagonist, Rasheeda Allen, in a quiet yet profound process of self-care and transformation. Through deliberate, intimate, and everyday tasks, such as changing linens, bathing, and dressing, the character moves through a ritual of waiting and renewal. These actions reflect broader themes of bodily autonomy, healing, and the reclaiming of domestic space as a site of agency and reflection.
Still from CYCLES (1976)
Drawing on Caribbean folklore, the film integrates animation with live action to create a cinematic language unique to African American women. Its multilayered soundtrack is equally distinctive, blending a chorus of women’s voices with music from Africa and the diaspora, including contributions by Miriam Makeba, Martha Jean Claude of Haiti, and legendary trumpeter Clora Bryant. This rich sonic environment evokes cultural memory and bodily rhythm, inviting viewers to engage with the film on a sensory level.
The film’s originality lies in its refusal to conform to dominant cinematic grammar. Instead, it offers a visual and sonic vocabulary grounded in repetition, abstraction, and sensual detail. Through this, CYCLES articulates Black womanhood as a site of complexity, care, and creative power.
Still from CYCLES (1976)
Zeinabu irene Davis is an independent filmmaker and Professor of Communication at UC, San Diego. Her work is passionately concerned with the depiction of women of African descent. A selection of her award-winning works includes a drama about a young enslaved girl, Mother of the River (1996); a love story set in Afro-Ohio, A Powerful Thang (1991), and an experimental psycho-spiritual journey of a woman with Cycles (1989). Her dramatic film Compensation (1999/2024) features two interrelated love stories that offer a view of Black Deaf culture. The film was selected for the dramatic competition at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. New Yorker critic Richard Brody named it one of the best American independent films of the 20th century. The film’s “rejuvenation” had its world premiere at the 2024 New York Film Festival and, after 25 years, had its theatrical run with Janus Films in 2025, followed by a Blu-Ray release by Criterion in August 2025. The film was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in December 2024. In 2016, Zeinabu completed the documentary Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema from Los Angeles, which won 7 awards, including the Best Feature Documentary and Audience Award from BlackStar. She recently completed a dramatic short about an experience of COVID-19 entitled Pandemic Bread, which won the Audience Award at the 2024 San Diego Filipino Film Festival. Zeinabu is working on a hybrid documentary, Stars of the Northern Sky, which tells the stories of abolitionists Sojourner Truth, Phyllis Wheatley, and Marie Joseph Angélique.
