Black History Month

Curated in collaboration with Mosa Mpetha (Black Cinema Project)
In cooperation with ISD and Afrikamera

This Black History Month – in collaboration with curator and researcher Mosa Mpetha, community initiative ISD and film festival Afrikamera – we present a panoramic exploration of Black liberation, memory, and belonging through cinema. The program moves from the foundational diasporic chronicles of Paulin Vieyra to South Africa’s anti-apartheid landmark Mapantsula, and from the revolutionary psychiatry of Fanon to Guinea-Bissau’s seminal independence narratives – Flora Gomes’s Mortu Nega and Sana Na N’Hada’s archival essay Nome. The journey extends into intimate contemporary struggles for sanctuary in Promis le Ciel and Dreamers, and and confronting generational trauma in Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. Alongside the pioneering queer DIY archives in The Early Works of Cheryl Dunye and Raoul Peck’s seminal meditation Lumumba: Death of a Prophet, these films remind us that the fight for self-representation is both deeply personal and politically urgent. 

Together, they form a dialogue across decades and continents, interrogating history, celebrating resilience, and affirming the power of community in shaping narrative sovereignty.

Mosa Mpetha is a film curator & researcher of Black, African and Archive films. Mosa co-founded Black Cinema Project, an evolving space for Black people to gather and watch and discuss films with care; And she curates Cinema Africa! a permanent African film strand at Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds (UK) in partnership with local African communities. She also specialises in audience and partner engagement, as well as delivering Pan-African curation and archive film training. 

The Initiative of Black People in Germany (ISD) was founded in 1985 and is now one of the oldest self-organized groups by and for Black people in Germany. It advocates for the rights and political participation of Black people and fights against all forms of institutional and structural racism. It advocates for a comprehensive reckoning with German and European colonial history. In 2001, ISD Bund e.V. was founded as an umbrella organization for all local ISD groups and has since functioned as a network. 

Afrikamera film festival – Contemporary Cinema from Africa is a platform for dialogue between African filmmakers and Berlin audiences.

In cooperation with ISD and Afrikamera