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LOCATION: room 1600, SFU Harbour CentreFILM SCREENING AND Q&A WITH DIRECTOR FRED KUWORNU
**RSVP full name and email to [email protected]**
We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe 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?
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu and produced by Do The Right Films, this multilingual documentary takes viewers on an expansive journey through the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and France, offering a compelling reexamination of European art history and its cultural legacy. Featuring insights from leading scholars in Art History, Black Studies, and History, alongside Black activists and curators, the film provides a rich, layered perspective on a neglected chapter of European history.
We Were Here has already attracted international attention, having been exhibited in the Central Pavilion curated by Adriano Pedrosa at the 60ᵗʰ International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, which attracted 700,000 visitors. The documentary has received critical acclaim for its fresh, thought-provoking exploration of race, art, and identity in the Renaissance.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Fred Kudjo Kuwornu is an Afro-Italian and U.S. multi-hyphenate socially engaged artist, filmmaker, curator and scholar based in New York. His work bridges past and present, the seen and unseen, exploring identity and race through historical remixing of archival materials. Kuwornu’s films have been exhibited at the 60th Venice Art Biennale in the Central Pavillion curated by Adriano Pedrosa (2024), museums and international film festivals. In 2025, Kuwornu was awarded the Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship for his innovative approach to early modern European history through the lens of the African diaspora. He also received the Dan David Prize, the worldʼs largest history award, in recognition of his career-long contributions to public history and cultural memory through audiovisual. He is currently developing a new video installation inspired by the Adinkra symbols of Ghana, exploring visual heritage as a speculative and connective language across Black diasporas.
DIRECTOR’S PERSONAL STATEMENT
“I was born and raised in Europe, yet throughout my school years, I never saw myself reflected in our history lessons. The only mention of Black people came in the context of the slave trade, and when we studied the Renaissance, there were no stories or images of African descent in our textbooks. Discussions about Black people in the 15th and 16th centuries typically focus solely on their condition as enslaved individuals, overlooking the remarkable figures who lived in Europe during that time. This film aims to empower the Black diaspora by highlighting their presence as an integral part of Renaissance Europe’s societal fabric. It seeks to address the gaps in our historical education and challenge the narrow narrative that has long shaped our understanding of this period. Black life was omnipresent, yet the narrative that is selectively told remains problematic.” - Fred Kudjo Kuwornu
TRAILER:
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515 West Hastings Street , Vancouver, BC, Canada, British Columbia V6B 5K3
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