DEFA Film Library Participates in Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention

The DEFA Film Library (DFL) participated in a panel discussion and exclusive film screening at the Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) annual convention, themed "Decolonization," held Nov. 30-Dec. 3 in Philadelphia.

For three consecutive years DFL has participated in the annual convention, which each year brings together scholars in a different North American city to exchange information and ideas, stimulate further work and sustain the intellectual vitality of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian studies.

As a follow-up to DFL's 2023 weeklong Summer Film Institute (SFI), DFL hosted a panel and screening of the of the international award-winning 2022 German documentary, "THE HOMES WE CARRY," directed by Brenda Akele Jorde, about Mozambican contract workers in East Germany.

Participants of the panel, "Beyond Racialization: Interrogating Blackness and Black Experiences in East German Cinema and its Legacy," included SFI co-directors Priscilla Layne of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Evan Torner of the University of Cincinnati, as well as Mariana Ivanova, UMass Amherst DEFA Film Library academic director, and Sunnie Rucker-Chang of Ohio State University.

"Both our panel and screening explored the central theme of the ASEEES conference, decolonization," Ivanova said, "which aimed at addressing the question: 'How have power relationships and hierarchies shaped what we study, how we study it, and who has a place at the table?'"

She added, "My co-panelists and interlocutors, Priscilla Layne and Evan Torner, and I are grateful for encountering many other researchers and 2023 SFI participants who came to our panel and screening to highlight DEFA films' importance in current conversations on allyship and solidarity, as well as on the lived realities of many Black people in former socialist countries."

DFL licensed "THE HOMES WE CARRY" after presenting the film at the festival, and it will soon be available for worldwide educational streaming on Kanopy and Vimeo.