Film Screening and Q&A with the director Fred Kuwornu

We Were Here, the untold history of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe.

Fred Kudjo Kuwornu is an Afro-Italian and U.S. multi-hyphenate socially engaged artist, filmmaker and scholar based in New York. His work bridges past and present, exploring identity and race through historical remixing of archival materials. Kuwornu's films have been exhibited at the Venice Art Biennale, the Museum of Moving Image (NY), the Library of Congress, and international film festivals.

Kuwornu’s film We Were Here was exhibited the Venice Biennale. It sheds light on the overlooked presence of African and Black individuals in Renaissance Europe, highlighting their depiction in masterpieces by some of the era’s most celebrated artists.
How did they come to Europe? Why were they portrayed?
Were they truly all servants or slaves?

If the Black faces portrayed in these Renaissance masterpieces could speak, what would they tell us?

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