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 documentary, artist’s moving image, race, and gender.
Cassell’s writing has been published in various outlets, journals, and books, including the Los Angeles Times, The Criterion Collection, Film Comment, MUBI Notebook, and Hyperallergic, as well as catalogues issued by The Museum of Modern Art, El Museo del Barrio, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. An itinerant curator and former museum worker, she has organized exhibitions and screenings at MoMA, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Metrograph (in partnership with Abrons Arts Center), Anthology Film Archives, and the Black Women’s Film Conference, among others. Additionally, Cassell programmed for BlackStar Film Festival from 2018 to 2023, and previously served as Editor-in-Chief of BlackStar’s journal, Seen, where she platformed film, art, and visual culture writing by and about people of color, with an emphasis on nuanced, slow journalism. Prior to joining Seen, she was the first dedicated reviews editor at Hyperallergic, where she focused on growing the publication’s film coverage and championing writers and artists from underrepresented communities. An experienced producer of media and live events, Cassell has also produced campaigns, content, and podcast/radio projects for Microsoft (in collaboration with Listen), Roskilde Festival (Denmark), Hourglass Cosmetics, Armani, Bay FM and Creative X (both South Africa).
Cassell is a former Fulbright fellow, and has received scholarly awards and fellowships from Duke University, 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.