David Pullins

"We Were Here" unveils the untold history of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe through iconic artworks. This multilingual film, shot across Europe, challenges the notion that all Blacks were slaves or servants. It reveals a diverse presence, including princes, ambassadors, merchants, and religious figures. Narrated from an Afro-European perspective, it explores stories absent from traditional history books. The film interweaves art history with social narratives, offering a fresh lens on European Renaissance and the complex tapestry of Black presence often overlooked in conventional historical accounts.

The documentary film explores how Enlightenment-era systems of knowledge—art, science, architecture, and cartography—produced enduring frameworks for racial slavery, territorial extraction, and Indigenous dispossession in what became the United States of America. Quote from the Director, Monique Linder: “After our last film about Reconstruction Destructed, I felt it was important that the next film go back to the very beginning, the making of America. This film really helps tie all the pieces in the Juneteenth Reckoning with Slavery film series together in a significant way. I’m looking forward to sharing it with others.”