Music: Cherrie, Sherihan, 2016Country: Somalia, Sweden|The first album by the Somali-Swedish R&B diva whose song “163 För Evigt” became a sensation worldwide despite the language barrier: powerful music informed by growing up black in Europe
Film: Sara CF de Gouveia, Sound of Masks, 2018Country: Mozambique, Portugal, South Africa|The story of Mozambican independence and the country's postcolonial identity as reflected through the performances of Atanásio Nyusi, a traditional Mapiko dancer
Film: Leon Le, Song Lang, 2018Country: Vietnam|A gay love story between a gangster and a cải lương singer set in the 1980s Saigon: a stunning, enlightening and effortlessly cool debut feature with necessary Asian queer couple representation
Food: Ema Datshi and Suja at Weekender Billiards, Restaurant & Bar, INC.Country: Bhutan|Bhutanese cheese smothered chilies and butter tea in a billiard club in Queens: a surreal and satisfying experience of a cuisine that deserves to be more popular
Film: Francesco Rosi, Christ Stopped at Eboli, 1979Country: Italy|Francesco Rosi's adaptation of Carlo Levi's memoirs is newly restored and relevant as ever: a testament to the importance of including the poor in the left's political struggle
Film: Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, For Sama, 2019Country: Syria, United Kingdom|A filmmaker documents her survival during the siege of Aleppo as she raises her young child and supports her heroic doctor husband: a vastly important film that has much to teach about humanity
Art: Franck Lundangi, The Bird, 2013Country: Angola, France|Fantastic beasts, third eyes and unity with the cosmos in the works of a mystic painter who used to be a soccer player: the kind of spiritual imagery we need in the anthropocene
Film: Rashid Desai, Everything Must Fall, 2019Country: South Africa|A comprehensive chronicle of the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa that is sympathetic to the cause yet maintains enough distance to remain objective
Film: Ibrahima Seydi and Robin Andelfinger, Mama Bobo, 2017Country: Belgium, France, Senegal|A short but powerful film about an elderly widow in Dakar whose everyday routine of looking back at her life from a decrepit bus stop is interrupted by the city's rapid gentrification
Film: Likarion Wainaina, Supa Modo, 2018Country: Germany, Kenya|Kenya's 2019 Oscar entry about a terminally ill 9-year-old girl who pretends to be a superhero and turns out to be one in real life: a brilliant, brave film on a highly exploited topic
Film: Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, For Sama, 2019Country: Syria, United Kingdom|A filmmaker documents her survival during the siege of Aleppo as she raises her young child and supports her heroic doctor husband: a vastly important film that has much to teach about humanity
Film: Kei Chikaura, Complicity, 2018Country: China, Japan|A nuanced, deeply original take on the toll that immigration takes on individuals, centered around an undocumented Chinese migrant in Japan who starts working in a soba shop under a stolen identity
Film: Xiaoshuai Wang, Red Amnesia, 2014Country: China|Dark secrets that nice people hold are the most horrifying thing in the world, as director of "Beijing Bicycle" portrays in his moody thriller about the effects of the Cultural Revolution
Book: Akiyuki Nosaka, The Cake Tree in the Ruins, 1975Country: Japan|A collection of sad and brutally honest short stories that give agency to casualties of WWII in Japan from the author of the story that became the basis for the "Grave of the fireflies" cartoon
Book: Józef Czapski, Inhuman Land: Searching for the truth in Soviet Russia, 1941-1942Country: Iran, Iraq, Poland, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine|The memoirs of an artist and activist who traveled across USSR in search of Polish POWs during WWII, that give an unflinching account of life in the remote corners of the Soviet empire
Film: Matteo Garrone, Dogman, 2018Country: Italy|A tragicomedy about a meek dog groomer who gets sucked into the dark underbelly of crime from the director of "Gomorrah": a Cannes-winning film for "Breaking Bad" lovers
Film: Floriane Devigne, No Box for Me, 2018Country: France, Switzerland|Two intersex humans in France and Switzerland build an affecting friendship as they learn to accept their bodies and battle the marginalization of intersex existence in the Western culture
Film: Agostino Ferrente, Selfie, 2019Country: Italy|In the aftermath of a shooting of their friend by the police, film director gives two neapolitan teenagers a camera and complete liberty in making a film about their lives
Film: Frances-Anne Solomon, Hero, 2018Country: Cameroon, Canada, DR Congo, Ghana, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom|A biopic of an extraordinary Trinidadian lawyer whose life spanned some of the most fascinating events of the 20th century, which doubles as a primer on the history of the Pan-Africanist movement.
Film: Michael Dominic, Clean Hands, 2019Country: Nicaragua, USA|Winner of 2019 Cinequest, Michael Dominic's documentary about an impoverished family who lives off Central America's biggest landfill, and their attempt to get out of poverty
Art: Robert Charlotte, Garifuna, 2014-OngoingCountry: Martinique, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines|Martinican photographer navigates the complicated, fraught history of black resistance in the Lesser Antilles, in the photographs he created during residencies on St. Vincent
Book: Tristan Roulot and Denis Rodier, Arale, 2019Country: Canada, Russia|An alternative history, where Rasputin is the one doing purges instead of Stalin, with the use of technology
Music: Ngaiire, Blastoma, 2016Country: Australia, Papua New Guinea|Dark, danceable future soul from Papua New Guinea in a sophomore album named after the singer’s childhood cancer: Ngaiire is a talent from Oceania to look out for
Art: Tapa ClothCountry: Wallis and Futuna|Spectacular cloth made from tree bark: sounds like an innovation, but it’s a century old tradition
Book: Nicholas Laughlin, So Many Islands, 2018Country: Antigua, Barbados, Bermuda, Cyprus, Fiji, Grenada, Jamaica, Malta, Mauritius, Niue, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines, Samoa, Singapore, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago|
Music: Yma Sumac, Mambo!, 1954Country: Peru|Peruvian goddess sings: four and a half octaves and a whole lot of mambo
Film: Laura Huertas Millan, Sol Negro, 2016Country: Colombia|A gentle portrait of a Colombian opera singer who struggles with addiction and mental health issues
