Written, directed and produced by Kenyan filmmaker, Peres Owino and Produced by Isaiah Washington (Grey’s Anatomy, The 100) « BOUND: AFRICANS VS AFRICAN AMERICANS » 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: 

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.

Date: 27 September 2015, 5:30 – 8:00 pm 

Tickets: 7,50€;
www.hackesche-hoefe.org

Date: 28 September 2015, 7:00  – 10:00pm 

Tickets: 6€;

Centre Français de Berlin (Wedding)
Müllerstrasse 74
13349 Berlin

http://www.africavenir.org