Co-Teaching Black Italian Cinema

Abstract

In February and March 2020, Dr Amanda Minervini of Colorado College and Fred Kudjo Kuwornu taught for the first time in the United States a course dedicated entirely to Black Italian youth and media: ‘Black Italian Cinema and Digital Performance’. We created ‘Black Italian Cinema and Digital Performance’ as an introduction to issues of culture, race, identity, and citizenship in contemporary Italy, drawing from documentary, film, and the new arena of social media. An entire generation of Black Italians, in particular artists, entrepreneurs, and bloggers (especially Millennials), have been affirming themselves in Italian culture and society, gaining progressively more visibility starting in the 1990s, and thus entering the spotlight of the Global Black Diaspora. When teaching this course, we asked questions such as: What themes/issues/topics are most discussed among Black Italians? Which art forms do they cite and refer to? In what ways and through which channels do Black Italians engage with the Global Black Diaspora? How is this generation seeking to be included in the history and socio-economic system of a country that still refuses citizenship to children born on Italian soil? What kind of cultural and artistic production has been emerging from ‘the new Italians’? We included Fred’s documentaries (the screenings were open to the general public), as well as works of emerging artists such as the writer Antonio Dikele Distefano, the rapper Ghali, and web-based projects such as ‘Afroitalian Souls’. Thanks to Fred’s connections, we were able to have a few Skype guests, such as Dr Camilla Hawthorne of the Department of Sociology at the University of California Santa Cruz; Laila Petrone, an Italian-Dominican filmmaker based in Los Angeles; Bellamy Okot, founder and editor-in-chief of the community blog Afroitalian Souls; and Dagmawi Yimer, an Ethiopian-born Italian filmmaker. We conceived ‘Black Italian Cinema and Digital Performance’ as an innovative course for departments of Italian studies and film studies alike, first of all because we could not find elsewhere any courses entirely dedicated to Black Italian experience, in particular dedicated to the generation of young Black people born and raised in Italy. We also felt that the artwork by Black Italians, and the social issues they identify, represent, and criticise, needed more visibility. The new generation of Black Italians has been creating an incredibly rich, mostly still (academically) uncharted world. Dr Amanda Minervini has always taught courses that invite reflections on themes related to diversity, and she had been wanting to teach with Fred since the first time she had invited him to give a talk on the Colorado College campus, in 2017. From that moment