Karina Griffith

Flânoirie: inscribing mobility through walking in Black German film

A young university student searches for a room to let. An American GI searches for love between visiting record shops and gigging with his band. 

Olingo and They Call It Love, respectively, are both black and white student films featuring wandering Black male protagonists in Germany. In her lecture, Karina Griffith introduces the term flânoire films, which she uses to describe works spearheaded by Black authors of German cinemas that refuse the stagnation of affects such as consternation (Betroffenheit) in exchange for active vibes. Flânoire films are characterized by their representations of unfettered Black mobility in Europe and a focus on respect rather than belonging.

Dr. Karina Griffith teaches in the Faculty of Architecture, Media and Design as Professor of Intersectional Visual and Media Theory at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). She holds a PhD in Cinema Studies from the University of Toronto and a Masters in Feature Film from Goldsmiths College London. She has been part of the curatorial team of the Berlinale Film Festival section Forum Expanded sinc 2021, and she is one of 12 fellows selected for the 2025 VILA SUL residency program in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.

Films: They Call It Love, King Ampaw, BRD 1972, Olingo, Emile Itolo, DDR 1966, 11 min.

Part of the series: Black Atlantic Cinema

“Seeing oneself through the eyes … of a nation that looked back in contempt”: This is how W.E.B. DuBois described the “double consciousness” which marks the life of subordinated groups in oppressive societies. Moving beyond the frame of the nation state and national cinemas, the concept of “Black Atlantic Cinema” considers a practice of film which spans the space of three continents and a history of several centuries. In the Lecture & Film series “Black Atlantic Cinema” scholars, curators and artists approach the ways in which filmmakers deal with the challenge of double consciousness across the Black Atlantic, from Africa to Brazil and the Caribbean to (post)colonial Europe.

The series is curated by Didi Cheeka, Daniel Fairfax and Vinzenz Hediger with support from Feven Haile

Organized by the Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft of Goethe Universtät and DFF in cooperation with ConTrust – Trust and Conflict in Political Life and supported by the Hessische Film- und Medienakademie, Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Afrika Studien der Goethe Universität and Georg Foster Forum of Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz.

All talks in English. All events at Kino im Deutschen Filmmuseum, Schaumainkai 41, 60596 Frankfurt am Main