A Black Gaze on the East Shorts Program

Curated by Massiamy Diaby and Maresa Nzinga Pinto

The Student from Accra
Donald M. Acquaye, GDR, 1965/66, 12 min. German

Olingo
Emile Itolo, GDR, 1966, 11 min. German with English subtitles

Black sisters in socialist ‘brother countries’
Maresa Nzinga Pinto, Mozambique, Germany, 2025, 11 min. Portuguese, German with English subtitles

Poeler Luft
Massiamy Diaby, Germany, 2024, 23 min. German with English subtitles

Followed by a talk with Massiamy Diaby, Patrice Poutrus, Maresa Nzinga Pinto (in German)

Beyond the dominant representations of Black people in films from the GDR/East Germany, A Black Gaze on the East highlights lived experiences and self-determined narratives of resistance, empowerment and intimacy: from the forgotten stories of Black contract workers, the longings and dreams for the future of former students in the GDR, the uncompromising reckoning with racist conditions then and now, to sensitive portraits of emotional relationships. 

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Massiamy Diaby, Patrice Poutrus and Maresa Nzinga Pinto. In the panel discussion, we will attempt to show the diversity of a Black East German gaze. To what extent is a common definition even possible? How has this gaze changed over the decades and where do we find self-determination? (Maresa Nzinga Pinto)

Massiamy Diaby is a freelance artist based in Berlin. Born in Frankfurt am Main, Massiamy grew up on the Baltic Sea island of Poel, in Berlin and in Accra. In 2020, she completed her acting studies at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. She works as an actress, develops her own theatre performances, realises film projects and writes poetry. She has performed at the Residenztheater Munich, the Theater Basel, the Theater Dortmund and the Deutsches Theater Berlin, among others. Her short film Poeler Luft was shown at the Africa Film Festival in Cologne and the AfryKamera Festival in Warsaw, for example. Massiamy's work aims to dismantle power structures and convey political issues as emotional experiences.

Dr Patrice G. Poutrus holds a doctorate in history. He was born in East Berlin in 1961 to an East German mother and an East African father and grew up and was socialised in the GDR. After 1990, he studied history and social sciences at Humboldt University. To this day, his work focuses on flight and asylum in post-war Germany, the experiences of Black people in the GDR, and the memory of the end of the GDR and the transformation in East Germany.

Maresa Nzinga Pinto is an Angolan-German memory worker, filmmaker, researcher, and curator. Her transdisciplinary practice explores collective memory, belonging, and resistance within neocolonial and (post-)socialist contexts. She has worked on participatory memory-educational and archival projects addressing Germany's (post-)colonial entanglements, Black movements, and Afro-diasporic identities. Combining visual storytelling with Black Feminist Theory and Critical Memory Studies, her work reimagines marginalised histories through archival practices of care that bridge the past and possible futures.