“Once you flee a country, survival mode is the only thing you have,” said Muhubo Mohamed, the director of community of partnerships at the Qalanjo Project, a Somali arts nonprofit based in the Twin Cities. “How can I ensure that my family and I are safe? And then, when we settle in another country, we have the luxury to yearn for the things we’ve never had. How can we connect with our community? How can we connect with our culture?”
The inaugural Black Europe Film Festival, which debuts in Minneapolis on Thursday at MSP Film Society’s Main Cinema, interrogates these questions of belonging, identity and cultural preservation. Featuring 31 films — nine features and 22 shorts from 24 countries — the festival reflects the lived experiences among Black communities navigating predominantly white European societies.
Echoes from the Horn
Minnesota, home to an estimated 80,000 Somali Americans — the largest population in the country, plays a central role in the festival’s programming. The Qalanjo Project presents “Echoes from the Horn: Somali Lives in Cinema,” a series of Somali-directed short films screening at the Cedar Cultural Center on Sunday, February 2 from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
“I don’t know the Somalia my mother and uncles speak of — the one filled with cinema and plays,” Muhubo said. “I wasn’t born in the country, but I speak the language and I see it in my people. Still, the Somalia I know is shaped by the Western gaze.”
The program features six short films, including “Life of the Horn,” which addresses environmental degradation along Somalia’s coast; “Muna,” the story of a British Somali teen mourning the family members she never met; and “Somalinimo,” a documentary of British Somali students navigating elitist institutions at the University of Cambridge.
“In the creation of this program, we realized there are some universal truths to the Somali experience,” said Sara Osman, the Qalanjo Project’s director of cultural engagement and the festival’s director of programming. “How can we discuss what it means to be Somali in Minnesota, and how is that similar to being Somali in London, in Somalia, in South Africa, Egypt or Germany? What does it mean for us as a people if we’re living mirrored lives in different spaces and not having conversations about that?”
“We’re not a monolith,” Muhubo added. “That’s the honest truth, so I’m really excited and hopeful to see different perspectives and narratives.”
A vision rooted in the fight for visibility
While the Qalanjo Project spotlights Somali stories, the Black Europe Film Festival at large offers a broader lens of the Black experience in Europe and the Horn of Africa, disrupting Western narratives.
The festival emerged from conversations between University of Minnesota film media professor Lorenzo Fabbri and Ghanian Italian filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu. Kuwornu’s traveling showcase of Black Italian cinema inspired the pair to envision a more expansive platform highlighting Black European filmmakers whose stories, voices and experiences are often marginalized or ignored.
Minneapolis was a natural choice for the festival’s debut. The city became a global symbol of Black solidarity and resistance following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“Minneapolis, in 2020, became the center of the world, and was also very important for Black Europeans as a moment of reckoning,” Fabbri said. “Black Lives Matter was already present in Europe, but 2020 was a moment in which the movement gained more visibility and more traction. It was a moment of connection between the global Black diaspora.”
With screenings at venues like the MSP Film Society’s Main Cinema, the Capri Theater , the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Cedar, the festival highlights stories of Black queerness, girlhood, youth, and explorations of Black representation in European art.
“The challenge in filmmaking today is really not so much in production, but in distribution of works,” Fabbri said. “It’s difficult to get these films out, especially in a very crowded media environment. So, this festival lets us tap into Minneapolis and St. Paul’s big cinema communities and introduce new works.”
A love letter to Austria’s communities of color
The festival’s opening-night film, “Edelweiss,” by Brooklyn-born, Vienna-based activist Anna Gaberscik, intertwines interviews and dance sequences to explore the lives of Austrians of color.
“Austria is a country where you cannot operate and live as ‘the other’ without being constantly reminded of it,” Gaberscik said. “What constitutes as an ‘other’ is so manifold. It’s so easy to be ‘the other.’ Everything is ‘the other’ here, and so that definitely influenced my focus on anti-racism work.”
Named after Austria’s national flower — a symbol of purity — “Edelweiss” examines how the flower’s symbolism is tied to a legacy of nationalism and its historical role in marginalizing communities of color.
“White. Pure. Innocent. Untouched. A protected treasure of the Austrian countryside,” Gaberscik narrates in the film’s trailer. “How beautiful would it be, I thought, to be as beautiful as this flower? To be admired and respected and regarded as precious. To be welcomed where I stand and not to be picked and misplaced, displaced, misused, discarded, ignored. But I’m not a flower. None of us are flowers. And many of us are not Edelweiss.”
The community-funded film redefines Austrian identity by centering the voices of women of color, queer people and the local Muslim community.
“Austria is a very small country but it’s politically, quite significant,” Gaberscik said. “I grew up in New York and there are certain things people know about Austria — like Mozart and Hitler — it’s a weird bag. But I think what gets lost is hearing about what it’s like being a person of color in Austria. This is a narrative that is extremely silenced in the society here.”
As “Edelweiss” makes its U.S. premiere on Thursday, January 30, at 7:30 p.m., Gaberscik hopes it sparks conversations about race, nationalism, and inclusion.
“I’m Austrian but I’m also American, so I’m really thankful and excited to have the premiere next week,” Gaberscik said. “I really hope that this film influences or impacts people’s perception of Austria.”
How to attend the Black Europe Film Festival
Date: Thursday, January 30, through Sunday, February 2.
Time: Various times for different films.
Location: Various venues in Minneapolis for different programs.
Cost: $0-12.
For more information: Visit mspfilm.org/series/black-europe-film-festival.
