The Cinema of Transgression is a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a New York City–based underground film movement, consisting of a loose-knit group of artists using shock value and black humor in their films.
[1][2] Key players in this movement were Zedd, Kembra Pfahler, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Jon Moritsugu, Manuel DeLanda, David Wojnarowicz, Richard Kern, and Lydia Lunch, who in the late 1970s and mid-1980s began to make very low-budget films using cheap 8 mm cameras.
Zedd outlined his philosophy on the Cinema of Transgression in The Cinema of Transgression Manifesto, published under the name Orion Jeriko in the zine The Underground Film Bulletin (1984–90).
[3] Cinema of Transgression continues to heavily influence underground filmmakers.
In 2000, the British Film Institute showed a retrospective of the movement's work introduced by those involved in the production of the original video films.