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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 like-minded artists using shock value and humor in their work. Zedd used it to describe his legacy with underground filmmakers like Andy Warhol, John Waters, and Kenneth Anger, and the relationship they shared with Zedd and his New York peers in the early 1980s. Other players in this movement were Nick Zedd, Kembra Pfahler, Jack Waters, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch, who in the late 1970s and mid 1980s began to make very low budget films using cheap 8 mm cameras.

An important essay outlining Zedd's philosophy on the Cinema of Transgression is the Cinema of Transgression Manifesto[1], published pseudonymously in the Underground Film Bulletin (1984-90).

Perhaps the most famous transgressive artist, Richard Kern, began making films in New York with actors Nick Zedd and Lung Leg. Some of them were videos for artists like the Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth.