“Hope in my Heart: The May Ayim Story” is a moving documentary about the life and untimely death of Ghanaian-German poet, academic and political personality May Ayim. Ayim was one of the founders of the Black German Movement, and her research on the history of Afro-Germans, but also her political poetry, made her known in Germany and other countries.
Ayim wrote in the tradition of oral poetry and felt a strong connection to other black poets of the diaspora. Poetry gave her an opportunity to confront the white German society with its own prejudices.
Interviews and poems reveal the search for identity, how and why the term Afro-German was introduced. An insightful look at how a young black woman experiences the German reunification. (Source: Third World Newsreel)
Audre Lorde - the Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 documents Audre Lorde's influence on the German political and cultural scene during a decade of profound social change, a decade that brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of East and West Germany. This chronicles an untold chapter of Lorde’s life: her empowerment of Afro-German women, as she challenged white women to acknowledge the significance of their white privilege and to deal with difference in constructive ways.
Supported by Lorde’s example Afro-German women began to write their history and their stories and to form political networks on behalf of Black people in Germany. As a result authors such as May Ayim, Katharina Oguntoye and Ika Hügel-Marshall published their works. Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 outlines Lorde’s contributions to the German discourse on racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, classism, and homophobia within the Black movement and the Black and white women’s movement, a discourse alive and growing today. Present-day interviews explore the lasting influence of Lorde’s ideas and the impact of her work and personality.
The relationship between Audre Lorde and Germany was mutually beneficial. During these years, Audre’s diagnosis of terminal cancer left her American doctors without hope for her survival. Berlin became her third home where she received naturopathic treatment in part responsible for the next eight years of her life.
