Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, filmmaker: ‘The study of slavery monopolizes everything and creates a prejudice that in Europe there were only enslaved Africans’

In the 15th and 16th centuries, during the Renaissance, Italy became the cradle of some of the most illustrious figures in its artistic and cultural history. This golden age saw the rise of personalities like Leonardo da Vinci — arguably the most iconic of all — along with a long list of luminaries in fields such as painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature: from Botticelli and Brunelleschi to Donatello, Michelangelo and Machiavelli.

These figures also shared the fact that at some point in their lives the Medici family, a powerful and infamous Florentine family that once owned Europe’s largest bank, also made a name for itself. Less known, however, is the fact that the first duke to rule Florence under the Medici name — and the first to govern the city-state as a hereditary monarchy — was a Black leader: Alessandro de’ Medici.

Born in Florence in 1510, it is not known exactly who his father was, but his mother was a servant of the North African family, Simonetta da Collevecchio. After an unsuccessful regency and a brief period in exile, he was elected sole governor of Florence in 1530. It was under his rule that the city transitioned from a republic to a monarchy, making him the first of a dynasty that lasted two centuries.

Alessandro de’ Medici and other overlooked figures from this era are the focus of the documentary We Were Here by Italian-Ghanaian-American filmmaker Fred Kudjo Kuwornu. The film explores the Black presence in Renaissance Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, offering a new perspective on this crucial period of history and its complex mosaic of Black figures.

We Were Here — which was presented at this year’s Venice Biennale — challenges the widespread notion that Black people in Europe at the time were solely slaves or servants, as Kuwornu explains in a videoconference interview. Without ignoring the atrocities committed during slavery, the documentary highlights more diverse Black figures, including princes, ambassadors, artists, merchants, and religious figures — many of whom Kuwornu argues have been overlooked in dominant historical accounts.

Question. What motivated you to center the documentary on the presence of Black people in Europe during the Renaissance specifically?

Answer. [Besides being a filmmaker], I work on screenings at university conferences, because my films are used as a tool about Black Europe. From that relationship with many professors, I started to have a lot of information and I noticed that there were many publications about the African presence in the Renaissance, the Middle Ages or the Roman Empire. At the same time, I wanted to do something that was European in scope, because a lot of filmmakers do films in their country, maybe two, but there are few documentaries made in six or seven. And the Renaissance is one of the most studied times in Europe.

Q. What were the main preconceptions you wanted to address in the documentary?

A. One, which is perhaps more connected with southern Europe, is the assumption that being Italian or being Spanish is a race and that they didn’t have any connection with other ethnicities in the past. The other is to challenge the idea that all the Africans who were in Europe, especially in those times, in the 15th and 16th centuries, were slaves. Because there were also a lot of people who were basically second generation, and there were a lot who came here to trade or as ambassadors or for other purposes. Sometimes the study of slavery monopolizes everything, and creates a prejudice in thinking that there were only enslaved Africans.

Q. How have we transitioned from that reality, from over 500 years ago, to a point where some now claim to have white and Christian blood?

A. In the process, there was a construction of race that is political, also to create identity in a country. When Spain expelled all the Arabs and the Jewish people, it needed to create the identity of the Spaniards, who the Spaniards would be right now. It’s the same with Italy, when Italy made the Declaration of Independence in 1861, they needed to create the Italians. And in the process of creating the nation and its identity, you needed to erase every impurity from the past, it doesn’t matter if they were religious or ethnic. Unfortunately, what happened was that after two or three centuries, in which a nation teaches you what is your identity, you are totally convinced that this is true.

Q. What was the story you discovered during the making of this documentary that surprised you the most?

A. One that made me feel very emotional is the Spanish painter Juan de Pareja. I was once in the Metropolitan Museum [in New York] and there was an exhibition of his. Imagine, a person like him is now is exhibiting in one of the most important museums in the world. I also thought that he was a free man. I didn’t know that he was a slave, he was the servant of [Diego] Velázquez. The other is the story of St. Benedict of Palermo. There had been other black saints before him, but St. Benedict was very poor and was venerated when he was still alive. He’s a sort of meritocratic figure inside the Catholic Church. Of course, it’s different when you approach historical figures that are connected to the presence. The two stories are very similar, because their legacy lives on: there are paintings by Pareja everywhere, and the veneration that people feel for St. Benedict is still alive.

Q. Almost all of the prominent figures in the film were men. What did you discover about Black women in Renaissance Europe?

A. This was one of the most difficult parts, because unfortunately, in the 15th and 16th centuries, [the vast majority of them] were servants or slaves. So I didn’t find any particularly specific story with enough detail that I could tell. In the 17th and 18th centuries things changed, but in the Renaissance, they didn’t. My only option was to include them in some scenes, and to mention that, although they were servants, they had an important role in households and in [the field of] pharmaceuticals. If some historian or researcher discovered something, it would be much easier to tell the story.

Q. The film exposes the lack of representation of Black people in the Renaissance. To what extent do you think this lack of representation is still a problem today?

A. In fact, in the Renaissance it was not a question of a lack of representation, but it is a question of how we talk about the Renaissance today. At that time, [Black people] were actually present in thousands of paintings and artworks. The paradox is now that there is a comparatively much larger presence. At that time, the presence was concentrated perhaps in important cities like Lisbon and Seville. But now throughout Europe you have a widespread presence [of Black people]. And this presence does not correspond to the contemporary way in which they are represented, and their representation is sometimes not accurate.

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