Gli Italiani Neri

Abstract

Gli Italiani Neri (English Translation: The Black Italians) explores what it means to be Black and Italian in the context of citizenship, national identity, and self-identification. This short documentary is a peek into the lives of five Afro-Italians who were born in Italy to Italian parents or non-Italian parents, or moved to Italy as an infant or later in life. They consider themselves Italian despite the ostracization from much of the country’s white population and an increasingly right-leaning government which stereotypes them as African migrants and uses Afro-Italians in general as scapegoats for Italy’s economic troubles. This 22-minute documentary was primarily filmed in Florence, Italy over a three-week period in January 2019. Gli Italiani Neri begins with a forgotten history, Italy’s colonization of East Africa, to offer the viewer a very brief basis for the current relationship between Africans and Italians. It then moves into telling personal stories of the inherent difficulties in the Italian citizenship acquisition process, purposely designed to keep Italian citizenship mainly to “Italian blood.” The documentary then proceeds to braid a multi-perspective narrative of the Afro-Italian identity in a social context that rarely addresses race.