In 1896, Ethiopia gained victory over Italy, hitting back at its first attempt to conquer the East African country. When Mussolini and the fascists came to power in 1922, the still abstract risk of a further attack became concrete. In 1935, Italy began an assault on Ethiopia once again, subjecting the country to a brutal war, not shying away from the use of poisonous gas: a crime, paradoxically, at once omnipresent and barely remembered in today’s Italy. Haile Gerima, veteran of the L.A. Rebellion and New Black Cinema, worked for 30 years on his monumental exploration of the history and mythology of Italian colonialism, and also commemoration of the Ethiopian resistance. From archive material, conversations with historical witnesses and his father’s plays, he weaves together a panorama of self-affirmation and colonial murder, of European complicity and Black solidarity. <em class="film">Black Lions – Roman Wolves</em> sets Ethiopian voices against lasting colonialist lies – and the recordings of the resistance against the reproduction of colonial images; against the entrenched visual dominance of the colonisers. A film for the present as well as for the coming decades.