A Special Premiere of Je Suis Noires by Swiss Filmmaker Rachel M’Bon and the Beginning of a Global Community Conversation Centering Women of Color Around the World
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| Through Je Suis Noires, Rachel M’Bon directly confronts the lack of representation across Switzerland—naming invisibility as both structural and lived. |
A Global Community Conversation centering women of color, this signature activation at the Alma Film Festival begins with a special premiere screening of Je Suis Noires (Becoming a Black Woman) by Swiss filmmakers Rachel M’Bon. Rooted in the film’s exploration of Black womanhood, visibility, and belonging within Switzerland, the program intentionally expands beyond the screen—creating space for collective reflection across cultures and geographies.
Following the screening, voices from across communities gather to reflect on how Blackness, Brownness, and belonging are lived, understood, and expressed in different parts of the world. The conversation emphasizes listening, shared reflection, and the complexity of identity beyond borders, acknowledging both shared experiences and meaningful distinctions shaped by place, history, and cultural context.
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| The film weaves together the lived experiences of Black women throughout Switzerland, offering an intimate portrait of identity shaped across cities, cultures, and personal histories. |
At Alma, the documentation of these global conversations will be directed by Atlanta-based, award-winning filmmaker Sydney Taylor Bryant, with production led through her company Shades of Cinema, ensuring that the stories shared by women from different parts of the world are captured with care, integrity, and cinematic intention.
Rachel M’Bon’s work extends beyond filmmaking into institution-building and long-term community impact. Her early platform-building includes NOIRES, an initiative launched to highlight Black and Brown women in Switzerland—work that later evolved into her association Now We Are Rising (NWAR). NWAR is a Swiss non-profit association advancing new narratives and awareness through engaged audiovisual work and broader cultural/educational efforts—centered on visibility and shifting collective imagination around Afro-descendant and racially marginalized communities.
She is also the initiator and co-founder of the Centre Culturel Afropea (French; often presented in English as the Afropea Cultural Center), a Switzerland-based, “nomadic” cultural organization created to address gaps in representation and to deepen critical reflection on stereotypes in cultural spheres—grounded in Afropean experiences and aesthetics.
The Alma Film Festival is also proud to be in a collaborative relationship with kweliTV, a Black-owned streaming platform dedicated to global Black stories across film, documentary, and series. As a companion to the special premiere and the global conversations recorded at Alma, we plan to showcase select completed conversation segments featuring women from around the world in the months ahead—timed as a companion to the film’s broader platform journey and continued public engagement.
“Community has always been at the heart of kweliTV’s work. Since day one, our mission has been to uplift global Black stories while creating meaningful spaces for reflection and connection. This project aligns deeply with our commitment to supporting storytellers and fostering conversations that continue long after the screening,” said DeShuna Elisa Spencer, Founder & CEO of kweliTV.
This exchange is professionally documented as part of Alma’s research-driven programming, contributing to a growing archive of global dialogue around identity, representation, and lived experience. The documentation supports Alma’s long-term commitment to cultural inquiry—ensuring these conversations continue to inform future scholarship, programming, and public engagement.
Together, the premiere, conversation, and extended platform partnerships reflect Alma’s belief in cinema as both art and inquiry—a living framework for connection, reflection, and collective growth.
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| Near the film’s close, Rachel turns inward—an intimate moment of reckoning, presence, and self-recognition that anchors Je Suis Noires in lived truth. |
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