George Romero is awesome! For over 40 years George A. Romero has presented the cinema audience with a world of hellish nightmares infested with flesh eating zombies, vampires, and psychotics. While the world he has presented has been increasingly deranged and apocalyptic it is also a world that looks eerily familiar and is appropriated with the very cultural motifs and values we all live by.

In a period of tame low budget monster movies, and a few glossy Hollywood horror films, George A. Romero brought something fresh and unique to the modern American Horror genre. With Night of the Living Dead (1968) and later its sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978), Romero created two of the most powerful and complex modern horror films in cinema, Romero is simply the Zombie Genre. Without him and his films the genre would not exist as it does today. Vibrate and alive with a social conscious and profound insight into the human condition. Without him it would still exist in the foreign lands of faraway places and the zombies would serve their masters with simple and precise obedience. Romero, however, took the zombie out of the castle, out from under the thumb of the oppressive master and placed them firmly in the rural landscape of America. They are in our fields, in our malls, in our gas stations and in our homes. The importance of these films and Romero as their director and creator is not limited to just the zombie sub-genre of horror or even the horror genre as a whole though. Yes Romero’s zombie films and their re-creation of a genre is important but what is much more important is what Romero’s films do with those zombies. What Romero’s works represent is the most progressive nature of the genre and in some ways film itself. Romero single-handedly opened up the genre to look at the relationship between humans and their monstrous counterparts. Looking at a world where the terror outside can be horrific and frightening and something to be afraid of, but while we are focusing on those horrors we loose sight of the horrors that exist inside our homes and societies as a whole. Ultimately questioning what happens when our society evolves to devour itself and come out a new. Romero’s real filmic talent being his ability to create rich creative cultural allegories and intense graphic films in a sociopolitical and cultural context with exquisite skill cannot be underestimated.

Romero’s importance can also be understood in terms of his ability to work outside of the studio system. With limited budgets and restraints put on him by studios and executives he has continued to produce provocative and insightful films at low cost and high thematic and artistic value. A legendary champion of any low budget/ independent filmmaker this part of his career deserves special attention. Working in his adopted home of Pittsburgh, PA Romero has shunned Hollywood to a large extent to be able to make films the way he likes without limits and limitations. Romero has proved through most of his career that a big budget and a bankable star studded cast are not always needed to ensure success and box-office dollars. It is this independent spirit and social consciousness that makes Romero an important and cherished American cinema artist.

The Light Factory is one of only four museums in the United States that promote the power of image through photography and film. The Light Factory presents independent cinema in a non-commercial environment where the audience can expand their vision of film and video beyond the googleplex. The Light Factory's film and video program also enhances its educational and exhibition mission while promoting dialogue between the disciplines. For more than 30 years, The Light Factory has served students, artists and the public at large by offering film screenings, photography exhibits, classes and outreach programs that promote media literacy and self-expression using the most power mediums of our time.

Reel Soul Cinema led by founder Dennis Darrell and managed by filmmakers of color throughout the Southeast, is the region’s premier film and networking series celebrating African-American filmmakers.