Skip Norman, who was born in Baltimore in 1933 and died in Washington DC in 2015, was a student at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB) in 1966, the first year of its existence. He went on to become a director and worked on 27 dffb productions. The titles of his films all hint at the struggle to assert an Afro-American identity in a world shaped by whites. CULTURAL NATIONALISM (1969), BLACK MAN’S VOLUNTEER ARMY OF LIBERATION (1970) or STRANGE FRUIT (1970) named after the song by Billie Holiday. BLUES PEOPLE (1968) adapted parts of the play “Dutchman“ by his peer LeRoi Jones (who later became Amiri Baraka). “They say, ‘I love Bessie Smith‘ and don’t even understand that Bessie Smith is saying, ‘Kiss my ass, kiss my black unruly ass.‘“ We will be showing five of Skip Norman’s films from Arsenal and Deutsche Kinemathek’s archive on March 22.

In 2011, an archive of film and audio material re-emerged in Bissau. On the verge of complete ruination, the footage testifies to the birth of Guinean cinema as part of the decolonising vision of Amílcar Cabral, the liberation leader assassinated in 1973.