Maka offers a poignant exploration of displacement, identity, and belonging by presenting Geneviève Makaping’s life in Italy and perilous migration journey. By sharing Makaping’s experience as the first Black news editor in Italy, Maka is about a Black woman reclaiming the narrative and speaking out against the media representation of immigrants.
Maka is a documentary about Geneviève Makaping, a Cameroonian-Italian anthropologist, writer and the first Black woman to be named the director of a newspaper in Italy. The film offers a detailed account of Makaping’s journey of migration from Cameroon across the desert and the ocean, her arrival in Italy in 1982 following the tragic death of her partner, her success as a journalist and television host, and her more recent relocation and current teaching job in Mantua. Maka explores how the perception of migration and race has changed since Makaping first came to Italy in the 1990s. Maka is a bold statement about what it means to be “other,” to be a woman, and particularly a Black woman, in Italy.
This roundtable will feature film director Elia Moutamid and screenplay writer from Stony Brook University Simone Brioni.
TrailerMore on Maka
Simone Brioni, “Maka: Diversity, Inclusion and Filmmaking”, The Italianist (2022).
Alex Christiansen, “Maka, Documentary About Pioneer Black Italian Activist, Geneviève Makaping”, La voce di New York (2023).
Rachel Johnson, “Producing Maka: Hybridisation and Dialogue in Academic Filmmaking”, The Italianist (2022).
Giulia Belardelli, “Maka. La storia di Geneviéve Makaping diventa un film. Per imparare a scoprire l’altro che è in noi”, Huffington Post (2023)