Event Highlights: National Identity, Multiculturalism in Contemporary Italy – Film Screening and Discussion with Fred Kudjo Kuwornu
Boston University’s Center for the Study of Europe partnered with the Interdisciplinary Program in Italian Studies, the African Studies Center at Boston University, and the African American Studies Program’s Conversations on Race to welcome Italian-Ghanaian filmmaker and activist Fred Kudjo Kuwornu.
Born and raised in Italy with an Italian Jewish mother and a Ghanian father, Fred got his start in the film and television industry by working in Rome as a TV show writer. Now, he has produced and directed multiple award winning documentaries, including Inside Buffalo and 18 Ius Soli.
On October 5th, Kuwornu screened his latest film project, Blaxploitalian: One Hundred Years of Blackness in Italian Cinema. The documentary spans over one hundred years, beginning with the first Black man in an Italian film, Baldassarre Negroni’s Zuma the Gypsy, in 1913. Since then, more than 500 actors and actresses of African descent have been part of the Italian cinematic industry, but their serious lack of representation compelled Kuwornu to make a change.
“In Italy, after the struggle that we had in the last four years for the citizenship and grant rights of citizenship to many immigrants, now we are moving in a second level that is the citizenship of the media,” explains Kuwornu.
Building on the momentum of #OscarsSoWhite and similar conversations in England and France, Blaxploitalian was inspired in part by Leonardo De Franceschi’s collection L’Africa in Italia, and in part by Fred’s own experiences as a black Italian in film.
“When I was born and raised, Italy was in a time in which basically there were few people of African descent in the country. And it was also a time in which maybe they didn’t know how to deal or manage with people that they call ‘people of color’ sometimes.”
Kuwornu sometimes uses the terms Afro-Italian, but when he’s in the UK or in the US, he prefers to use Black Italian. “I think that the identity of the young people, not only in Italy but everywhere, is more complex than the definition “afro,”” he shares. “Sometimes also inside the community of African descent in Italy there are people who are defining themselves in different ways.”
With the ultimate goal of developing a platform to support advocacy for greater diversity in media, Kuwornu fully believes in the power of sharing diverse stories. “More filmmakers, journalists, writers, entertainers,” Kuwornu begins. “It’s very important to develop also their own stories.”
– Toria Rainey ‘18