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Berlin Premiere: "BOUND: Africans vs African Americans" with Diretctor Peres Owino in Attendance
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Event information
| Info | Tickets: 7,50€; ermäßigt: Berlinpass, 5er & 10er Karte, Gildepass, Heavy User Card; 030 283 46 03; www.hackesche-hoefe.org |
| Address | Hackesche Höfe Kino | Rosenthaler Straße 40/41 10178 Berlin |
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Written, directed and produced by Kenyan filmmaker, Peres Owino and Produced by Isaiah Washington (Grey's Anatomy, The 100) is a multiple award winning, hard hitting documentary that addresses the little known tension that exists between Africans and African Americans. The film opens with personal testimonials that expose this rift then walks us through the corridors of African colonialism and African American enslavement, laying bare their effects and how these have divided and bound Africans and African Americans.
Interviews with notable experts on African-American culture guide us through Bound and provides context for the interviews. Dr. Maulana Karenga (the founder of Kwanzaa) contextualized the Black Consciousness Movement; Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, explains some of the behavioral aspects of African-Americans; and Dr. Joseph Bailey exposes the psychology of slavery.
The screening will be followed by an open discussion with director Peres Owino (Moderation: Maisha Eggers), as well as by a small reception in the cinema foyer.
With the friendly support of Brot für die Welt/EED, Katholischer Fonds, Aktion Afrika des Auswärtigen Amts.
In cooperation with FilmInitiativ Köln, Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD) and Adefra. Media Partners: Africiné, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Club der Freunde von RFI, Berlin Poche, Exberliner, multicult.fm, Art Labour Archives, Planète Métis, Contemporary &, Terre des Femmes Stiftung.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oshAs5ZKjsQ
Press Reviews
"The Must See Film of 2015" Huffington Post (Ernest Owens)
"Owino has created a compelling, significant, and empathetic film that will be a conversation starter and a catalyst for change across the African diaspora. But it is the film’s exemplary exploration of cultural relations that assists in reflecting on all societies the importance of examining the racial, political, and geographical prejudices within us all." Brice Smither, Montreel-X
"My favorite doc of SIFF 2014 (and the winner of this year’s Lena Sharpe Award, which goes to the female director’s film that receives the most votes in public balloting at the festival) found director Peres Owino approaching an eye-opening issue with a personal stamp that felt absolutely integral. It’s a movie that finds a lot of universality in an ostensibly narrow topic." The Sunbreak
"This groundbreaking film helps play a role in overcoming this dichotomy by showing individuals sitting down together and having an honest (and shockingly civil) conversation. And not that all of the topics featured were politically correct -- that genuinely gave the film an honest dialogue about what black people across the Diaspora think, and how we got there. However, the film gets to the core of suggesting what is perhaps the only way we will get to understanding ourselves and each other. " Huffington Post (Ernest Owen)
Awards
- Winner - Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival, Winner - Women In Film- Lena Sharpe Award at the Seattle International Film Festival,
- Winner - Best Film Directed by Woman of Color Award at the African Diaspora Int'l Film Festival
- Nominee - 2015 AMAA for Best Diaspora Documentary
- #BOUNDAvAA has screened at over a dozen film festivals across US, Canada, Europe and universities including Harvard University.
Director's Statement
When I came to America my greatest desire was to give every African American I met Africa. And by that I mean, my love and understanding of it because I felt that through the enslavement process they were robbed of that. I came to America with the idea that African Americans would be open to me and was quite shocked when the first African American I met said to me, “I’m not African, I’m from Chapel Hill North Carolina and you people sold us.” That put me in this space where I had one of two options, withdraw or engage. I chose to engage and together, Jerome Morris III and I found a way to bring together the African and African Americans students at our University. But in retrospect we had to because there were like 50 black students on the entire campus.
Then I moved to Los Angeles and I forgot all that great work that we did and fell into the space where African Americans became “the other”, yet I was more exposed to African Americans in Los Angeles than in Wisconsin. I had become comfortable or complacent when others put down African Americans around me. Let me put things even clearer, I live in an African American neighbor and it took me almost 3 years to speak to any of my neighbors, all of whom are African American. But I did not notice this until I was in Minnesota visiting family, all of whom are African, and an argument broke out about the “condition of African Americans”. I found myself taking a side that I would not have taken ten years prior. That was my wake up call. Somewhere along the way I had taken a turn that I did not like and I had to find my way back.
And the funny thing is that in finding my way back to African Americans, I find my way back to myself and begin to see Africa and being African in a whole new light. And the lesson I came out with after 4 years of toiling through this is that we are all the other half of each other’s story. We all carry just one half of our own history and we need to sit and talk to the people on the opposite side of that history to get the full story. And there is where the healing lives.
Director: Peres Owino
Peres Owino (Lifetime TV's Seasons of Love, author of On the Verge) is a Kenyan born award winning writer, director, producer and actress. Her directorial debut, "Bound: Africans vs. African Americans" won the Women in Film- Lena Sharpe Award at its World Premiere at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival.