Casandra Stark Mele was a principal director and actor in the
No wave cinema movement referred to as
Cinema of Transgression
__notoc__
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. Key players in ...
. She made all her films in the 1980s and early 1990s under the name Casandra Stark.
[Sabin, Roger 1999. ''Punk Rock: So What?; The Cultural Legacy of Punk''] Since then, she has added her real family name Mele to her professional name due to a deep connection she felt for her family roots. "
Mele
Mele () is a ''Comune'' (Municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Genoa in the Italian region Liguria, located about west of Genoa.
Mele borders the following municipalities: Genoa, Masone
Masone ( or ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the ...
" is
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
for apples.
Life and work
Casandra grew up in
Wallingford, Connecticut
Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, centrally located between New Haven and Hartford, and Boston and New York City. The population was 44,396 at the 2020 census. The community was named after Wallingford, in En ...
with the first name Rosanne and still answers to "Ro". She is currently a dramatic vocalist and live performer as well as a painter and film maker. Her films often featured the music of one of her bands, such as Menace Dement and/or The Trees, a duo with guitarist and political scientist
Frank Morales
Frank Morales is an Episcopal priest and activist in New York City.
Morales was born in 1949 and grew up in the Jacob Riis Houses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His father was Puerto Rican and his mother was Peruvian. He first became ...
with whom Casandra has a child named Frankie.
Her film ''The Anarchists'' was aired on Manhattan Cable Television in 1992 and features the music of
Missing Foundation
Missing Foundation Is an industrial music and performance art project active in the late 1980s - present and led by Peter Missing. Their live shows were notorious for sparking civil disobedience (including the occasional riot) and causing seri ...
. It was partly filmed in
Naples, Italy
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
(A city she refers to as Napoli) as well as New York. Her film ''Parades of Crazy'' ranges from very surrealistic images of people marching slowly through a park wearing masks to a beach scene in black and white of Casandra herself and her friend Laura May wearing white gowns and splashing in the waves and floating in the tide. Most of her films do not feature Casandra herself, however. She starred in the title role of her ''Death of an Arabian Woman'' film.
She has authored six
chapbooks, one of which, ''Your World Not Mine,'' chronicles events in her life growing up an
epileptic
Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrical ...
.
She has dedicated her talents to working with mentally challenged of the
Lower East Side promoting creative outlets such as ''Coocooloco: An Anthology Of Creative Writings From The So-Called Mentally Ill'' and ''The Lower East Side And Beyond'', a collection of
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
.
She went on to become a
high school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
teacher in New York.
Footnotes
References
* Sabin, Roger 1999. ''Punk Rock: So What?; The Cultural Legacy of Punk''
*
Further reading
* Patterson, Clayton (2005). ''Captured: A Film & Video History of the Lower East Side''
*
Jack Sargeant (1999). ''Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression''
External links
Casandra Stark Mele Official Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stark, Casandra
Living people
American film directors
American women film directors
Punk filmmakers
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American women
Women in punk