Maya Cade is currently serving as the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI)‘s Scholar-in-Residence. For her two-year-long project, “Black Film Archive: Tenderness in Black Film,” she is exploring Library collections to unpack meanings of Black tenderness in film. She plans to not only continue building the Black Film Archive, but also produce a documentary film that captures conversations between herself and Black filmmakers.
Her work has appeared in multiple venues, including: Architectural Digest, Boston Globe, and more. She also recently programmed a film series, “Try a Little Tenderness,” for the Academy Museum.
We sat down with Maya to learn more about her recent visit to the Library, her experience as a CCDI Scholar-in-Residence, and how tenderness in Black film can awaken the senses.
In November, you visited the Library and shared about that journey with other users on Twitter. What is the significance of connecting Black film enthusiasts with the Library’s collections?
New ideas, research, and explorations can take root by connecting Black film enthusiasts with the Library. When creating Black Film Archive, I began chanting to myself that “an Archive that does not reach the public it intends to serve is only an idea, regardless of its holdings.”
Capturing my research weeks at the Library is done in the spirit of that mantra. I documented my experience via a Twitter thread that shared my research curiosities and findings. Generally, people on Twitter were delighted to see the points of interest I took hold of in the Library’s collections. Through my work, I hope to make new paths of curiosity visible to a public that wants to know more about the Library’s vast collections that may not feel accessible to them.
How has your experience as a CCDI Scholar-in-Residence been meaningful to you?
Becoming a CCDI Scholar-in-Residence has transformed my relationship with research and trusting my own curiosities. With the support of the Library, my life’s work has been given new structures – support from Library staff in CCDI and beyond, tangible fiscal resources, and endless research tools – to succeed and thrive beyond what I previously thought possible. The limit to what my future can look like beyond this engagement does not exist. That means more than I can express.
As you’ve been exploring Black films within the Library’s holdings, what have been some of your favorite finds?
On my very first visit to the Library, I saw a wonderful film, “Yamekraw” (1930), for the first time. The movie about a Black settlement centers on a “boy meets girl” tale. With its wildly innovative camera and storytelling techniques, the cinematic short has expanded the boundaries I previously put on my tenderness research. With “Yamekraw” leading the charge, it became clear my research would no longer be a straightforward path—an idea I gleefully welcomed with open arms.