From Switzerland to Atlanta: Je Suis Noires Explores Black Identity and Belonging.

Featured in Je Suis Noires, Zurich-based cultural advocate Tallulah Patricia brings her perspective on Black womanhood in Switzerland to a public screening and conversation at Georgia State University.

ATLANTA — Georgia State University’s Honors College will host a free public screening and discussion of Je Suis Noires (Becoming a Black Woman) on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, at noon in the university’s Speaker’s Auditorium.

Traveling from Zurich, Switzerland, Tallulah Patricia, a cultural advocate featured in the documentary, will join Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Alahna Lark and Georgia State scholar Dr. Rashana Vikara Lydner for a conversation with the audience about womanhood, representation, and belonging in Switzerland and the United States.

Directed by Rachel M’Bon and Juliana Fanjul, the documentary follows M’Bon’s exploration of Black womanhood in Switzerland alongside the experiences of other Black women. Their accounts confront structural racism, challenge stereotypes, and examine what it means to claim both Swiss and Black identities.

The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Africana Studies, the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora. It is part of the Alma Film Festival’s Ent-Tech (Innovation & Discovery Expo) gathering in Atlanta, September 30–October 4, 2026.

“The Honors College is honored to host this event in collaboration with the Alma Film Festival. This film addresses issues relevant to many of our students, who cross boundaries defined in many different ways,” said Dr. Sarah Cook, dean of Georgia State University’s Honors College.

For festival director Anthony R. Page, an Honors College alumnus, the screening also marks a personal homecoming.

“Learning alongside students from all corners of the world expanded my perspective and planted the seeds for the work I’m doing today,” Page said. “Alma has since built coalitions across 42 countries, and it’s an honor to bring that spirit of exchange back to the campus that helped shape me.”

Page also thanked Cook, Dr. Jonathan Gayles, and the Georgia State team for helping bring the event to campus.

Je Suis Noires received the 2026 Alma Film Festival’s Best Documentary award. M’Bon was also named the inaugural recipient of the festival’s Dr. Cornel West Award for Global Truth & Cultural Conscience.

Directed by Rachel M’Bon and Juliana Fanjul, Je Suis Noires follows M’Bon’s personal inquiry into Black womanhood in Switzerland alongside the experiences of other Black women. Their accounts confront structural racism, challenge stereotypes, and explore what it means to claim both Swiss and Black identities.

The documentary received the 2026 Alma Film Festival’s Best Documentary award. Separately, M’Bon was named the inaugural recipient of the festival’s Dr. Cornel West Award for Global Truth & Cultural Conscience.

At Georgia State, the film will provide a starting point for examining how identity changes across borders—and how the language used to describe race can obscure differences in lived experience.

Attend the Screening

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 · Noon
Georgia State University’s Speaker’s Auditorium
Student Center East · First Floor, Room 120
55 Gilmer Street SE, Atlanta, GA 30303

Free & Open to the Public - Space Limited; RSVP Recommended (Click Here)

Our Principles in Practice

The Alma Film Festival is guided by six pillars of purpose: conversation, connection, community, collaboration, cultural diplomacy, and collective growth.

Our approach is research-centered, audience-focused, technology-driven, and experience-based. At Georgia State, we put these principles into practice through an exchange among speakers and audiences whose experiences span film, scholarship, and community organizing.

Featured Speakers

Tallulah Patricia

A Swiss-Ghanaian-Egyptian strategist, writer, and cultural advocate, Patricia founded AfroSwissters to connect Afro-descendant women and allies through cultural programming, dialogue, and professional development.

She created and hosts The Artistic Conversations, serves on the advisory board of VOLTA Art Fair, and writes as TheSwissPanAfrican. She holds a master’s degree in African Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

As a participant in Je Suis Noires, Patricia brings firsthand experience of the film and the questions it raises.

Alahna Lark

Lark is an Emmy-nominated film producer, founder of Lark Media, and executive director of SignifyTV, a streaming platform dedicated to underrepresented creative leadership in film and television.

Born to Liberian refugees, she explores displacement, cultural memory, and belonging through her work. Her credits include Sweet Auburn Blues, Made in America, and The Games in Black and White, which examines the partnership that helped bring the 1996 Olympic Games to Atlanta.

She also directed and produced When Faith Calls, The King Center’s documentary about the faith of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

Dr. Rashana Vikara Lydner

An assistant professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State, Lydner studies Black popular culture in the French- and English-speaking Caribbean, examining how race, gender, sexuality, and language shape cultural expression.

Her first monograph, Dancehall Ka Joué: Gender and Sexual Politics at Play in French Guiana, is under contract with Louisiana State University Press. It explores how French Guianese artists use dancehall to challenge social expectations and connect with a broader Caribbean and global Black culture.

Continuing the Conversation

The Georgia State event builds on Alma’s May 30 screening at Palate Atlanta Tasting Room, where executive and professional women discussed the documentary in relation to their own experiences of race, gender, work, and belonging. The campus gathering brings that exchange to students and the wider Atlanta community.

Reserve a seat for the screening or explore the full five-day Ent-Tech Atlanta schedule.

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MEDIA & PROGRAM INFORMATION

For additional information, media inquiries, or program participation:

BlueBistroCreative@gmail.com  

Alma Film Festival
Ent-Tech (Innovation & Discovery Expo)
Afro-Mosaic Cinema Summit