Photo: Rachell Morillo
Dessane Lopez Cassell is a New York-based editor, writer, and producer. Her work spans the intersections of film and visual art, with a particular interest in artist’s moving image, documentary, and experimental film.
Cassell’s writing and cultural criticism has been published in various outlets, journals, and books, including the Los Angeles Times, Film Comment, MUBI Notebook, The Criterion Collection’s Current, Metrograph Journal, and Hyperallergic, as well as catalogues issued by MoMA, El Museo del Barrio, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Cassell previously served as Editor-in-Chief of BlackStar’s journal, Seen, where she platformed nuanced film, art, and visual culture writing by and about people of color. She was also the first dedicated reviews editor at Hyperallergic, where she focused on championing critics and artists from underrepresented communities and growing the publication’s film coverage.
As a producer, Cassell has worked across disciplines to mount performances, live events, and media projects, including podcasts and radio shows for Microsoft and Roskilde Festival, and campaigns and content for Hourglass and Armani. A former museum worker and an itinerant curator, Cassell programmed for BlackStar Film Festival from 2018 to 2023 and has organized exhibitions, screenings, and performances at MoMA, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Metrograph (in partnership with Abrons Arts Center), Anthology Film Archives, Bartram’s Garden, and the Black Women’s Film Conference, among others.
A former Fulbright fellow, Cassell has received scholarly awards and fellowships from Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, the Ford Foundation, CUNY Graduate Center, and Oberlin College. She was named a DOC NYC Documentary New Leader in 2022 and serves as Vice President of the board of The Flaherty.