Enduring Color lines and the Fact of Blackness: Films from the African Diasporas in France and Italy

Enduring Color lines and the Fact of Blackness: films from the African Diasporas in France and Italy

Peaux noires : quel héritage ? by Estelle Ndjandjo et Johanna Boyer-Dilolo (2026)

Crossing the color line/Crossing the color line healing from the past by Sabrina Onana (2022)   

«La Ligne de couleur» by Laurence Petit-Jouvet (2014)

W.E.B. Du Bois’s declaration in the ground-breaking The Souls of Black Folks in 1903, “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” continues to resonate some 125 years into the twenty-first century. Fifty years later in 1952, 

Frantz Fanon’s seminal work, Black Skin, White Masks, interrogates the racial epidermal schema of the "fact of blackness." The question of color probed in this 

selection of films demonstrates its enduring presence through time and its implications for diaspora-born afrodescendents who call these locations home.

Peaux noires : quel héritage ? by Estelle Ndjandjo et Johanna Boyer-Dilolo. Between memory, struggles and pride, this documentary series gives voice to those who live it. Through personal testimonies, conversations with specialists and creative mis en scène, the project explores the historical and cultural evolution of the representation of blackness – from a past where it was both a source of fascination and oppression to a contemporary era where self-affirmation and self-love take on their full meaning.

The 2-part documentary Crossing the color line. Crossing the color line healing from the past by Sabrina Onana explores the experiences of young Afro-Italians who were born or grew up in Italy. Probing myriad questions of belonging, African-ness, Italianity, citizenship, representation, racism, the roots of their immigration history. Part 2, frames Italian history especially in the context of early Italian immigration juxtaposed to present discourse on immigration in Italy. In addition, Part 2 highlights African and Diasporan contributions to world history and culture.

La Ligne de couleur by Laurence Petit-Jouvet, the nine-part series of lettres-filmées, originally produced in 2014, revealed a renewed interest in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement that spread across the globe. For this reason, in 2020, filmmaker Laurence Petit-Jouvet decided to make the series, which deals with issues of police violence, systemic racism, racial discrimination and experiences of racialized identities in France, accessible to a wider public through the YouTube video-sharing platform. Among the nine film-letters are those of Fatoumata Diallo and Alice Diop. For a long time actress Fatoumata Diallo suffered because of her Afro-hair. With time she learned how to coiffe it, to bring out its beauty, but more importantly, to love it and in turn, to love herself. Through a hairdressing ritual with her daughter, she relays her story to her, which is that of so many other Afro-descendant women. The lesson she wants to pass on to her daughter is to assume her Afro beauty. In dialogue with her young bi-racial son, Tidiane, filmmaker Alice Diop addresses issues around race, exclusion and belonging, while her son raises the issue of color, and his place as a brown child in-between the identities of black and white.

Peaux noires : quel héritage ? (The heritage of blackness)

Crossing the Color Line - Part 1

 

 Crossing the Color Line - healing from the past - Part 2

La ligne de couleur by Laurence Petit-Jouvet