Marie Tagbo
2022 HEAR US Awardee
Collaborative Arts Class of 2024
Marie Tagbo is an author, actress, writer, and filmmaker in New York University’s new major Collaborative Arts. She has created many short films, plays, documentaries, and YouTube videos in her career. Her work is largely based on her own experiences, growing up in an all-white, conservative community in St. Louis Missouri. Marie is continuing to investigate the relationship between reality and fiction, realizing that in Hollywood, the stories of black women are either falsified or ignored. She has dedicated her career to furthering authentic representation for young black women. In her stories, she incorporates themes of mental health, intersectionality, and classism. Alongside filmmaking, Marie has also worked in Creative Development, doing internships with Smartypants Pictures and Maven Pictures.
Project
Fish Out of Water: The Black School Girl Project
In high school, I was an energetic, passionate, nerdy young black girl. I did have many friends, and yet I had underlying feelings of isolation. I was alienated socially, because I was the only black girl in my classes. So college was cathartic for me. I met other black women, and had validating conversations about our experiences. We had all experienced the teacher who doubted our potential, or the racist bullies. We could connect, from similar racist incidents, to handling beauty and dress codes. From the conversations, I realized that black women are forced to face racism, sexism, and classism at a young age, and yet are rarely at the center of coming of age stories.
“The Black School Girl Project” came from my desire to memorialize the black female perspective of highschool. It consists of five interviews of black women, who attended private high schools across the country. In the interviews they recount their joys, their heartbreaks, and how high school affected their young adult identity. These interviews will be on the website, as a space for young women to watch the stories and find themselves represented. We will also take a pivotal scene from each interview and turn it into a narrative short film. These films will be shared on Instagram and YouTube, and bring viewers to the website.
The dream is that young women can explore the website, be engaged by the short films, and discover the resources that will help their experience. “Fish Out of Water” will offer an expansive view on young black women’s voices, because each girl will be asked to tell their story, and the variety within that is beautiful, universal, and personal.
Collaborators
The Black School Girl Project has committed to working exclusively with femmes of color for its creative production and most of its crew and cast. Here are the collaborators who believed in this story from the beginning and are making this project possible.
Alyssa Goodwin, Collaborative Arts 2024, co-writer and lead actress. She’s a multidisciplinary artist and activist who prides herself on creating personal, meaningful work exploring all facets of identity and what it means to exist in our current social sphere. Prolific and articulate, she has the rare ability to weave worlds together and bring them into existence in a split second. From theater to film, her works are full of heart and that can ignite the imagination. Alyssa has a deep passion for storytelling and is devoted to spotlighting and uplifting other marginalized people, especially other artists.
Jasiah Denise, Film & TV 2024, Director. Native of Atlanta, she is in the Stern-Tisch business and film dual degree program where she will graduate college with a BFA in Film, and BS in Business. With hopes to own her own production company and start her own business, Jasiah constantly has her feet in two worlds at once. Amongst Jasiah’s accomplishments she still remains true to why she creates in the first place; to uplift voices and tell stories that help people understand each other rather than create more division.
Ariana Marie, Film & TV, 2024, Cinematographer. Her credits include The Cinema School, the Ghetto Film School where she earned the position of Director of Photography for major projects such as the partnership with The Frick Collection and an international thesis in Rome. Ariana’s work spawns from a motivation to share underrepresented stories, constantly advocating for diversity in front and behind the camera. Hailing from the Bronx, she is very proud of her neighborhood and is never shy to represent her background. Ariana has previous experience with Amazon Prime Studios, Walt Disney Studios, and Weiden+Kennedy.
