Zinha Productions
Envisioning New Suns
Biography
Emma “Zinha” Morgan-Bennett is a writer/director, a film programmer, and author. Through her narratives and her academic scholarship, Zinha questions our understandings of apocalypse, kinship, and reproductive lives lived in the margins of society. Zinha trained as a director at Goldsmiths University of London. Her award-winning and nominated short films played at Rhodes Island Flicker Film Festival, Watersprite Film Festival, the BFI Future Film Festival and more.
Zinha has been a programmer and occasional jury member for Sheffield DocFest since 2021. She has been named a resident of the International Documentary Association (IDA) Experimental Realities Conveening (via the Andy Warhol Arts Foundation Grant, ‘23); the Birmingham Open Media (BOM) lab (‘22); Rosemary’s House Writing Residency (‘23); Sheffield DocFest’s Alternate Realities Talent Programme (‘22); and the Future of Film Incubator (‘22). Her writing on Reproductive Justice and Black Motherhood has been published by Haymarket Press in the antholog So We Can Know and in 2020, Zinha was awarded the prestigious Marshall Scholarship after receiving her BA with High Honors from Swarthmore College.
Zinha is currently developing a number of immersive film and narrative short film projects.
Professional History
Education and Positions
Education
Goldsmiths University of London, MA Digital Media 2022
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Graduated with Distinction.
Goldsmiths University of London, MA Filmmaking (Documentary) 2021
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Graduated with Distinction.
Swarthmore College, BA 2020
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Major: Medical Anthropology | Minor: Black Studies.
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Graduated Phi Beta Kappa & awarded High Honors.
Marshall Scholar '20
2020 - 2022
Awarded the Marshall Scholarship for 2020-2022. Complete an MA in Filmmaking (Screen Documentary) at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2020/21 and an MA in Digital Media (Image Making) in 2021/22.
Co-Director, E.A.T.T. Company
March 2015 - 2020
Co-founder and Executive Director of Eat at the Table Theatre Company; a fiscally sponsored, sole proprietor, non-profit organization. Established EATT, a youth multi-media company, to create space for young creatives of color to explore and celebrate race through repurposed and original theatrical pieces. Obtained partnership with Manhattan Class Company (MCC) Theater. Oversaw $10,000 annual budget from 2015-2020.
Awards and Honors
Awards, grants and fellowships won individually or as a group
2020
NCAA WOTY (Finalist)
Nominee and top 30 finalist for NCAA Woman of the Year. The NCAA Woman of the Year award honors graduating female student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership.
2019
William J Cooper Grant
A Foundation Grant awarded in support of topical events in a future academic year featuring guests who are eminent in their fields. Awarded $27,300.00 for creation and coordination of, “Beyond The Field: Activism, Athletics, and Empowerment in the Modern Political Era” a day for the Eagles champion and anti-incarceration activist, Malcolm Jenkins, to visit Swarthmore and discuss the intersections of political dissent and athletic capital.