“This film explores the history that shaped the environment I grew up in”: Haile Gerima on Black Lions – Roman Wolves at Berlin Film Festival 2026

Renowned Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima, a leading figure of the LA Rebellion film movement and long-standing film professor at Howard University, presented his monumental work Black Lions – Roman Wolves at the Berlin Film Festival 2026. Best known for his seminal film Sankofa, Gerima describes this epic as the culmination of his life’s work, deeply rooted in his personal history: growing up with a playwright father who wrote about Italian colonialism and an orphaned mother raised by the Italian Catholic Church. This film is “a further exploration of a history that shaped the environment I grew up in,” he states, a final artistic collaboration with his father’s legacy. Gerima details the decades-long struggle to access Italian archives, battling bureaucracy and what he terms the “psychological manifestation of guilt”. He hopes Black Lions – Roman Wolves will make “everyone question” miseducated historical truths, fostering self-reflection for both Ethiopians and Italians. Ultimately, for Gerima, this is a political film about “all of us”, our roles in history, and the power of resistance.