Decolonial filmmaking: Interview with Simone Brioni

Abstract

In this interview, filmmaker and scholar Simone Brioni talks about the two most recent documentaries which he wrote, Maka () and Oltre i bordi (Beyond the Frame) (), which share reflections about the visual representation of Africans in media and Italy’s colonial legacy. He discusses the similarities and differences between these films and the documentaries he made in 2012 with/about writers Kaha Mohamed Aden and Ribka Sibhatu, respectively, called La quarta via (The Fourth Road) () and Aulò (). In particular, Brioni focuses on the collaborative process with director Elia Moutamid and protagonist Geneviève Makaping to make the documentary Maka. Brioni also talks about how the dialogue from which the documentaries have emerged has progressively become the theme of the film themselves. Other topics of the interview include the use of the documentary to produce academic research, the impact of COVID-19 on the making of the films and the circulation and distribution of the films.