Please join us for a screening of Medhin Paolos' film, Asmarina: Voices and Images of a Postcolonial Heritage. Following the screening, Medhin Paolos will join a Q&A with students and faculty members, discuss her professional trajectories, their motivation, the filmmaking process, its reception and other related issues.

Of Eritrean origin, Medhin Paolos is an Italian filmmaker, photographer, electronic musician and social justice activist. She is currently an Associate Fellow in Latino/a Studies at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Her first film Asmarina (2015), which she co-directed with Alan Maglio, narrates the presence of the habesha (Eritrean/Ethiopian) community in the city of Milan through the collective memories of the community recorded in personal archives through photo documents, music and stories, exploring the different shades of identity, migration and the aspirations of the African people. In contrast to media narratives that portray African immigration to Italy as a recent phenomenon, Asmarina offers another vision of the African diaspora in Italy, one that demonstrates the long-standing presence of Eritrean and Ethiopian communities, as well as their contributions to the development of Italian postwar national identity. Asmarina is also study of contemporary Italy, currently dealing with a rise in xenophobic attacks against African migrants, ongoing migrant catastrophes in the Mediterranean, and the struggle of second-generation Italians of African descent to gain full citizenship rights.

Medhin Paolos holds a BFA from NABA-Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan. For ten years (1999-2009), she was part of the folk-electronic band Fiamma Fumana. Paolos is the co-founder of the Milano chapter of Rete G2 (Second Generation Network), a national organization that promotes the human and civic rights of children of immigrants in Italy. Currently, she is conceptualizing an educational platform for bringing forth a plurality voices, histories, and cultures to the forefront through media artistic interventions.