Zeinabu irene Davis is an independent filmmaker and Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. Her work spans narrative, experimental, and documentary genres, often incorporating them together to create hybrid cinematic experiences. Davis is passionately concerned with the depiction of women of African descent, their histories, and experiences. Her award-winning work includes: Spirits of Rebellion: Black Cinema from UCLA (2016); Mother of the River (1996); A Powerful Thang (1991), Cycles (1989). Her feature film Compensation (1999/2024) was selected for the dramatic competition at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. The film had its world premiere “rejuvenation” at the 2024 New York Film Festival followed by a theatrical run with Janus Films, and BluRay by the Criterion Collection. Compensation was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in December 2024. Her most recent film is a dramatic short about an experience of COVID-19 entitled Pandemic Bread (2023), which won the Audience Award at the 2024 San Diego Filipino Film Festival. Currently, Davis is working on a feature documentary entitled Stars of the Northern Sky, which tells the stories of Northern abolitionists Sojourner Truth, Phyllis Wheatley, and Marie Joseph Angélique.