And then Filmnita Applebum came about...
I originally created Filmnita Applebum in early 2024 because I wanted a little corner of the internet where people didn’t already know me. I had a finsta account where I would rant about my life, movies, random shit, and whatever else was on my mind. My friends always told me they loved the way I thought about things, and eventually I started wondering what would happen if I took that same vulnerability and put it somewhere bigger. Somewhere that wasn’t just TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or whatever algorithm was currently deciding what people should see.
The name is literally a pun. I love A Tribe Called Quest, especially their production and sampling, and I wanted to play off “Bonita Applebum.” It started as Filmnita Kowabun before I changed it to Applebum. Is it corny? Absolutely. Do I like corny shit? Absolutely. But Filmnita Applebum isn’t really about me trying to become a “film critic.” Honestly, I hate when film writing feels like somebody is desperately trying to sound smart enough to go viral on Letterboxd. I’m not writing dissertations for academic scholars, and I’m not interested in pretending every thought I have about a film needs to sound profound. I’m writing for regular people who love films and cinema and art. People who want to be put onto something they’ve never seen. People who want to talk about a film after it ends. People who like to get a little nosy. People who want to connect movies to their own lives.
Films are an escape for me, but they’re also a way I understand myself, other people, relationships, culture, growing up, and the world around me. Sometimes I watch a film and think, “Damn, I’ve been this person.” Sometimes I watch one and think, “What the fuck would I do?” And sometimes I just really like the film. It doesn’t always have to be that serious.
DO YOU HAVE FILM RECOMMENDATIONS? DO YOU HAVE COMMENTS, QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS? LET ME KNOW DOWN BELOW!
Behind the blog
Hi, I’m Zhandi.
I’d like to describe myself as an awkward, passionate nerd who somehow decided that films, writing, art, and oversharing my life would be the human experience I’d embody. Outside of filmmaking, you can usually find me reading something, at first Fridays in my city, at my local dive bar bumming drunk cigs, singing horribly to Anita Baker on karaoke Sundays at Imbibe, or doing something completely spontaneous because apparently planning anything has never worked out for me. I’m a girl for the people. If Ossie Davis can be ‘Da Mayor” in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, then I'mma be the city’s princess of Naptown, Indiana. I’m not the city’s princess because I’m popular, but because I’m active in my community, NOT just online. The IndyGo bus drivers on my route will wait a little longer to make sure I don’t miss the bus. My friends offer me rides without me having to ask because they know I take public transit. I can walk into my local bar and get unlimited cigarettes (in THIS ECONOMY?). I cool with the man yelling Psalms 23 on the corner and best believe he’ll bust somebody’s head about me. That kind of community means more than being known to people in a superficial sense.
I’ve always been a storyteller. Even as a kid, I was constantly making shit up, playing make believe, and creating little worlds of my own. Deep down my mind was my safest escape, plus I felt weird as fuck compared to everybody else growing up and when you’re black it’s hard to show up unconventionally. For a long time, I wasn’t confident enough to actually let people read what I wrote. When I entered high school, I had an English teacher who believed in me and the work I produced. It probably seemed like a small thing at the time, but having somebody see something in me before I could fully see it in myself changed everything. I’ve been trying to protect and nourish that little spark ever since.
Eventually, my love for storytelling led me to filmmaking. I’ve always had an Afrocentric view of the world that was centered around blackness; Black people, Black queer people, Black women because those are the stories I know and love. There are so many things I wish I had seen growing up as far as representation and I feel a responsibility to put some of those stories into the world myself. I’m especially drawn to Afro-surrealism, surrealism, comedy, psychological thrillers, melodrama, taboo subjects, and unattainable love. Basically, if something can make me laugh, uncomfortable, horny, confused, or question my entire existence, I’m probably interested. I’m still figuring out exactly what my directorial style looks like. I don’t have some perfectly constructed auteur manifesto hanging on my wall, but I know I want my work to make people feel something. I want people to see themselves in my films, even when those stories are being told through the perspective of a Black queer woman.
Put Me On is where I’m putting you onto films, I think you need to know about. Cinephile Confessions is where things get a little more personal and I let films drag me into whatever emotional or existential rabbit hole, I’m currently in. Quick Takes are for when you want the tea on new film releases or popular films without reading my 3,000-word emotional breakdown. And Behind the Frame is where I get to fangirl over other fellow, local filmmakers and creatives whose work inspires me.
I don’t know what Filmnita Applebum will become. Maybe it’ll become a bigger film publication or become a community. Maybe it’ll become a place where people discover my filmmaking. Hopefully, all of it. But more than anything, I want to build a little cult following of people who genuinely love films and love connecting through them. Most importantly, I want this to stay mine.
I don’t want to keep up with an image or some version of myself that I think people will like better. I don’t want to change myself to fit an audience. I don’t want authenticity to become another aesthetic I have to perform. This is my space, and I want people to see the awkwardness, the passion, the weirdness, the contradictions, the mistakes, the growth, all of it.
So, if you leave this page knowing anything about me, I hope it’s this: It’s okay to be an awkward Black girl in this world, it’s okay to be passionate, weird, and eccentric, AND you will never look lame for being yourself.
