2012 Documentary
Dir. Dagmar Schultz
Approx. 1 hr 20 mins
I think you will like it! Access via myRedDragon library tab:
Please leave a comment with your response to the following prompt by 4 pm on Monday, April 13.
Describe one moment, idea, or scene from the film that struck you as particularly interesting or important. Why did you feel this way? Be as specific as possible.
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The idea that struck me as really beautiful and heartwarming was when she helped the women of Germany find an identity. An identity that wasn’t a derogatory word thrown out in random conversation. An identity as Afro-Germans. Audre helped the black women of Germany to embrace each other and themselves as black and as women. To me, this just embodied what Lorde is all about. The way of finding that true identity that speaks to a community as a whole and allows them to feel vibrant and alive. Like they could take on the world and inspire a change in attitude or understanding of their culture. She brought the women of Germany a self-awareness that they lacked, a historical awareness that many had no idea about or could truly trace, and bringing about a name or characterization that gave them a positive outlook on themselves instead of as it was put “useless”. I feel this way because she empowered so many.
Gabriele, I totally agree with what you saying and I had thought the same things. Lorde gave an awareness that gave so much to so many people that still inspire many people today, so many people that Lorde help learn about themselves which allowed them to help each other because “we need each other and ourselves even more.”
In Schultz’s documentary about Lorde’s time in Berlin what struck me most was not only the profound effect Audre had on Berlin, but the effect Berlin had on her. As Gloria Joseph said, “Berlin added years on to Audre’s life, and largely because of Dagmar introducing her to alternative treatment.” This struck me because I felt there was truly more to that statement than simply the alternative medicine Lorde received while abroad. It was so palpable in that documentary, how much life Audre Lorde brought to the Afro-German women and the sense of identity she helped them create. She also appeared to be very happy and comfortable around these women and was almost always laughing with Gloria. I think it could be said that the mental and emotional support she received in Berlin also had a profound effect on Lorde’s battle with cancer. It was really beautiful to see the community of women of color coming together to support each other and, beyond the scope of activism, also helped each other personally.
One idea that I saw to be very prevalent throughout this documentary was the idea of community and communication. In many of the scenes there was a group of women that were able to talk freely and confide in each other. At 45:32, Lorde says, “when we deal with the reality of the rest of our lives, to the extent that we do deal with the reality out there, we need each other and ourselves even more.” I think this signifies how important it was for Lorde to find her place in the world. Somewhere she could be 100% authentic to herself and surround herself with people who inspire her.
Something that really stands at to me about the documentary is the idea of community. Throughout the semester we have talked about how vital it is for Lorde to have connections with other women in order to survive. The idea of forming close community really stood out to me while watching this documentary because it was obvious how important these women were to Lorde. I really liked the moment around 22:51 where these group of women including Lorde were sitting around in a circle sharing their different ideas. I also love how at 23:07 a woman expressed how Lorde made her want to write and how she was inspired. I think that moment shows how influential Lorde was and how she was supportive over others writing as well.
One thing that really stood out to me in the documentary was finding an identity. I never realized how little Afro-Germans there were and at this time I would have thought there to be more. I think this experience was meant to happen for Audre because it brought her to these women and helped them show a sense of identity. It helped them because they seemed to always feel like outsiders. For example, when Gloria and Audre were walking in Germany and people looked at them like they had never seen a black person before Gloria said she would go up to them and tell them to take a good look at what a black person looked like. I think there needed to be a sense of identity by Afro-Germans. They saw themselves as outsiders compared to the other people in Germany of white descent but Audre taught them of them importance in their identity and to be proud of their race. She did not sugar-coat it either. She told them it would get worse and that it would be hard but that they had to stay strong and fight it.
Hi Alaina, I love how she doesn’t sugar coat her statement beginning at 24:22 “Don’t think its gonna be easy because it’s not. Its not… I started out like all of us start out, a coward, afraid. It’s not to say I’m not afraid now, its to say that whether I am afraid or not I count less, I value myself more than I value my terrors. It doesn’t mean I don’t have them, once I take that position I can look at them and see what it is they teach me.” This strength you mentioned is what I attribute to her ability to acknowledge and transform her fear into usefulness. More often than not, I believe people succumb to their fear to avoid whatever punishment they estimate will come their way rather than facing this fear and growing from the position it holds them in.
The scene that struck me as particularly interesting was the interview of the two black afro-german women who were inspired by Audre Lorde. This made me realize that Lorde did not only help women to view their oppression through a new lens with her writing, but with her teaching, she inspired women to write about themselves and shine light on histories that have been lost or overlooked. I found the history of afro-german women very interesting, especially since they are referred to as “war-babies”, when their presence in Germany has no correlation to World War II. This reminded me of the American misconception of referring to Native Americans as “Indians” due to Christopher Columbus believing that North America was actually India. Throughout the movie, Lorde looked jovial and charismatic and the way she walked and spoke was inherently confident and friendly. She was truly motivational and did not limit her crowd, in any means, to african american women.
Throughout this film there were quite a few moments that caught my attention but the most intriguing to me was around 29:37 when Audre discusses her focus on black women within her work. It can sometimes be difficult to identify with writing or poetry that does not touch on your own culture or identity. A primary issue that the majority of us have is that we cannot truly place ourselves in Audre Lorde’s shoes because, simply put, we are not black. However, Audre addresses this fact within this documentary, as it is quite notable that in many cases her audience will not always be just black women. She states that, “Because I write for black women does not mean that I turn away from white women who can use or who need the things I say. But I write first of all from where I am and I am not white. It does not men that my work is not available and that we do not have things to say. We share a heritage, we share an earth, and we need each other.” Audre expresses that even though we are different, we must respect our differences— and that is truly the only way we can work together. Here she means to expose her work for various reasons, and one perhaps being that white women can access the differences that she experiences, and learn to respect them. A key element to Audre’s point on black and white feminism rests on the fact that black and white feminists share common problems but they also do not. The only way to truly aid each other is to come together by realizing this. Audre’s work serves as a bonding agent, as she ultimately helps women in coming together and learning from each other.
Something in the film that struck me as important was the idea of community and interconnectedness among women. Many times throughout the film, we are shown groups of women openly sharing their feelings, emotions, thoughts and ideas. These women have respect for each other and genuinely want to hear each other’s thoughts. This sort of connectedness reminds me of our class! When we were still in the classroom, I always felt comfortable enough to speak or to ask questions. It is vital that women support women. Around minute 45, Lorde says “It’s been the love of women that has kept me alive for so long, that loving between women, whether it is bitter, whether it is tragic, whether it is painful, whatever. . . it’s nourishing and empowering and there’s an answer to the despair that we have to deal with all the time, when we deal with the realities of the rest of our lives”. This quote really struck me as important. Lorde’s words inspire women to want to be their best selves and discover who they really are. Her sense of community expands to many different women and encourages them to be their true selves.
Hi Keira! I really liked this part of the documentary as well. Lorde does an amazing job at using her oppressions and differences to join groups of people together. In the film, we see the community and strength of women who overcome their oppressions by uniting as one. As you said, I also felt comfortable and empowered to speak during class because we all supported one another. With a class mostly female, we were all able to share our struggles but still hear about other people’s struggles with no judgement. Lorde was the voice for many, and her strength of speaking out against injustices, allowed for other women to do the same. I felt the documentary really highlighted that idea.
In the time that Lorde spent in Berlin, she gave women the ability to find inner strength with the gift of community. Not that the Afro-German community did not exist previously, but they needed to rise as a seen community in Germany, where they were before deemed as non-existent and unimportant. A moment that stuck out to me in the film was when people that joined the meetings shared their experiences about how the gatherings helped them redefine their group. The goal was to bring everyone together to have the whole community be recognized on positive terms. It first started with just having coffee at a friend’s place, asking around for other Black Germans to join. The first meeting for the Afro-German group, everyone was “very excited because, for everyone, it would be the first time being in a group of other Afro-Germans. People who have the same experience, without talking about it, would understand you.” Lorde described how a small action, leading to something greater, gave these women a “blossoming sense of identity… let us be ourselves, now, as we define us.” This community grew to reclaim themselves as something other than “cross-breeds.” The strength that blossomed out of having meetings and educating themselves further on identity was beautiful work that Lorde expanded into a movement for so many marginalized groups.
The most important part of the film for me was her time in Berlin. Lorde went there and started something incredible. she showed the people their identity and how to love, share and support others who had the same identity and help others who had different identities relate to them. I enjoyed seeing her with the women she talked about in the cancer journal. the support, love, and admiration that they had for her. The level of love shows me how powerful of an impact Lorde had on the women of Berlin. she gave them a gift that was precious and unforgettable. she gave the women purpose and told then who they are. Lorde gave these women a community of support where they once felt alone and isolated.
The aspect of the film that I found to be the most interesting was when they were identifying different double cultures as I had never heard the names mentioned! I always have heard of “African Americans” but I never realized that other countries did it too, “Afro-Asians”, “Afro-Germans”, etc. I simply never realized that other double cultures existed for black people around the world, I always thought they simply had their individual culture wherever they were, not that they had other double cultures like “Afro-German” which is really interesting to me, I am quite curious how they combine the two cultures and celebrate each aspect of themselves with each culture.
One idea that stood out to me was the influence Audre Lorde had on Afro-Germans and the way she truly cared to support them and the way they lived. She said, “it’s not only important for you to write it down for yourself, it’s at the same time important for me[…] and for other black people[…] to know about Black Germans.” Lorde wanted others to understand the way Afro-Germans lived and wanted them to feel important and connected. I think it’s necessary to share personal ideas even if you think no one will hear them at that moment. Lorde has shown us how far inner self thoughts can take someone. They provide knowledge and awareness and relating back to her teaching materials, Lorde always spoke to her students about the truth. She taught them to teach themselves with their own thoughts and opinions and then to share those with others. This relates to the connectedness she hopes to achieve with the Afro-Germans.
A portion of this text that stood out to me is around 37 minutes where Lorde discusses how she uses poetry as her weapon. She says that in a world that defines humanness by men and whiteness, being a black woman she is constantly endangered. This struck me because of the privilege I hold being a white man. She uses her poetry as a force to disengage the societal mentality of superiority which is such a beautiful concept. I can never imagine knowing the struggles she, or any person of color faces, and it is really honorary that Lorde knows what she has to work with to combat these injustices. She attempts to change what must be our common future with her words in her poetry. Another thing that stood out to me is just her overall word choice and tone in her language. Lorde uses such powerfully connoted words in her simple conversations and the way she speaks drives the topic home. She speaks with such a level of certainty and calmness and her poetry has the same effect. According to Lorde, poetry is used not only to interpret feelings, but to also change them and cause people to feel things that they were unable to understand. This ties into her feelings about intimacy and wholeness which I thought was really neat!
One moment of the documentary that struck as crucial to my understanding of intersectionality was when Audre Lorde introduced the term, “hyphenated people”. Lorde originally frameworked this term while in Berlin where she sought the kinship of other black women who were also in search of their identity. It was here that Lorde realized that whether one is Afro-German or Afro-American, there are similarities within our differences yet differences within our similarities. The documentary goes on to demonstrate the different forms of racism that a black woman can face in Germany compared to America. One young German woman recounts that the nicest thing she had ever been called was “war baby”, while one of Lorde’s students states that she never thought of Afro-German as a positive concept before Lorde introduced the notion of the hyphenated people. Lorde gave these Black German women a sense of self and solidarity that could have never existed if they had not bridged the gap of difference. Organized by the Black women of Germany, the mission of the “Initiative of Black Germans” organization lies within the outcry, “We were born here in German and we will stay here!” In the same way that the African Americans asserted their need for racial pride and self-determination during the Black Power movement, the”Initiative of Germans” declared it necessary for Black Germans to positively define themselves on their own terms.
The entire documentary was really thought-provoking and intriguing to me. One scene, in particular, that really struck me was right at the beginning of the documentary (6:20-7:06). The two friends who were interviewed together: Katharina and May. It first struck me because that was how I met my best friend nearly three years ago. She happened to sit down next to me in an English 101 class and we’ve been friends ever since. My thoughts then drifted to what an impact Lorde had on these women. May said that she only knew a few other Afro-Germans until she was in Lorde’s class with Katharina. To check my own privilege, I have never had to walk into a room and not be able to identify with someone based on my skin color. Putting myself in their shoes I can empathize with how uplifting and exciting it must have been to find each other. Lorde allowed a community to form in her classroom, a place for people to come together and work and talk together. That community, in theory, would then spiral out of the classroom and into the students’ lives and further out into the world (that’s a pretty large impact for one person, but if anyone could do it, it would be Lorde).
To say that I shed a few tears throughout this film would accurately help describe how compassionate and beautiful Lorde’s message is and how she affected the women she met in Germany. It hit a chord in me when Lorde began doing what she does best- help people connect. The way that she helped the Afro-German women identify themselves and name themselves a name that they got to create for themselves and each other, to further connect them and embrace them was so powerful. By being able to see this as well as having read about Lorde’s time in Berlin, it helped me picture the scene clearer and made it even more moving. It also meant a lot to me knowing that not only did Lorde help those women find themselves and understand themselves, she also was able to teach the viewers something as well; the embrace others, regardless of differences.