MIGRATION

A Long Distance Art Practice Is Here to Heal a World Where Families Are Split Apart By the Pandemic —‘Sister Octopi’, Natalya Konforti & Justine Formentelli

November 19th, 2020|Country: France, Italy, UAE, United Kingdom, USA|

Two cousins separated by time zones and oceans create together to overcome shared trauma, lack of concrete roots and keep the family close-knit despite the distance

A Displaced Child Prodigy’s Imagination Offers Ideas For Our Collective Future—‘Anbessa’, dir. Mo Scarpelli, 2019

November 15th, 2020|Country: Ethiopia, Italy, USA|

Urban development in Addis-Ababa and humanity’s race for progress are explored through the eyes of a curious, talented ten-year-old boy living in a hut in the shadow of shiny new condominiums

Homes, Memories, Perceptions: Ethnic Minorities and the Scars of War in Vietnam— ’The Tree House,’ dir. Trương Minh Quý, 2019

September 14th, 2020|Country: Cor People, Jarai People, Ruc People, Vietnam|

A poetic yet informative journey across the unconventional homes of Vietnamese ethnic minorities becomes a rumination on belonging, displacement, and weaponized alienation

The Voices of Women Reclaim Algerian History Through Colonization, Wars, and Personal Infractions—Assia Djebar, ’Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade,’ 1985, trans. Dorothy S. Blair

September 2nd, 2020|Country: Algeria|

A linguistically ornate exercise exploring postcolonial history and identity, Assia Djebar’s account of her homeland is a monument to the country’s women and their heroic lives

At the Intersection of Queer and Samoan Identity, Nature, Magic, and Decolonization Through Poetry—Dan Taulapapa McMullin, ‘Coconut Milk,’ 2013

August 23rd, 2020|Country: Sāmoa Amelica, USA|

While reclaiming his culture from the Tiki bars, Samoan poet and artist dwells on his fa’afafine identity, his family history within colonialism and the enchanting environment of Tutuila island

Land, Labor and Alienation in Gentrifying Istanbul—‘Saf’, dir. Ali Vatansever, 2018

August 18th, 2020|Country: Germany, Romania, Turkey|

Migrant and local workers compete for jobs, as the urban sprawl overtakes the neighborhoods: a searing second feature centered around a young couple, where the husband suddenly goes missing

A Burning Desire to Belong and Some Heartbreak On a Roadtrip Across Bosnia & Herzegovina—‘Take Me Somewhere Nice’, dir. Ena Sendijarević, 2019

August 9th, 2020|Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Netherlands|

A young woman’s absurdist journey across her estranged homeland in an intelligent candy-colored debut from a Bosnian-Dutch filmmaker with an exhilarating young cast

Small Business Owner Against the City Authorities in Pre-Epidemic Wuhan—‘City Dream’, dir. Weijun Chen, 2019

July 28th, 2020|Country: China|

A close look at the law enforcement systems in the Chinese city of Wuhan through the story of a street vendor who decides to battle gentrification in a very flamboyant fashion

Blackness, Queerness and Yoruba Tricksters in the Works of Nigerian-British Photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode

June 25th, 2020|Country: Nigeria, United Kingdom|

It has been three decades since the art world lost Rotimi Fani-Kayode to an AIDS-related illness, but his works on race, sexuality, religion, and difference, remain as fresh and urgent as ever

Rapping and Repping for Central America—Zaki & WEEDMACKER, ‘Centraka,’ 2020

June 11th, 2020|Country: El Salvador, Guatemala|

Salvadoran hip-hop prodigy Zaki now lives in Guatemala, but that only means a broader range of exploration of musical genres, cultural heritage and society’s discontents

The Breakaway State on the Cusp of Adulthood—‘Transnistra’, dir. Anna Eborn, 2019

June 8th, 2020|Country: Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Transnistria|

An intimate and haunting portrait of six teenagers in rural Transnistria shows the splintered prospects and the many limitations of growing up in a melancholy landscape

Social Realism Meets Coptic Motifs in Eritrean Artist’s Michael Adonai’s Visions of His Evasive Homeland

June 1st, 2020|Country: Australia, Eritrea|

He became an artist while struggling for his country’s self-determination as a young man on the frontline of the liberation movement. Then he lost Eritrea again but recreates it in imposing paintings

A Sublime Vision of Faith, Race, and Destiny in Contemporary Cuba, Buttressed by Magic and Poetry—’Black Cathedral’, Marcial Gala, 2012, trans. Anna Kushner

May 26th, 2020|Country: Cuba|

The English-language debut by a Cuban writer of staggering talent is a fantasy-spiked exploration of the paths that crime, creativity, Christianity, and craziness can offer

The Burn of Settler Colonialism In Inuit Tragicomedy Set Amid the Snows—‘One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk’, dir. Zacharias Kunuk, 2019

May 21st, 2020|Country: Canada, First Nations Peoples, Nunavut Inuit|

A historical encounter of an Inuit elder and a settler government official is dramatized with heart, humor, and brutal honesty in a film on the absorption of indigenous culture by the colonial state

A Father’s Secrets, War Crimes, and a Daughter’s Return to Liberia—‘Daddy and the Warlord’, dir. Shamira Raphaëla, 2019

May 14th, 2020|Country: Aruba, Liberia, Netherlands, USA|

A striking documentary follows journalist Clarice Gargard to her homeland, as she investigates the connection between her beloved father and Charles Taylor, one of Africa’s most prominent warlords

The Bard of Simplicity Travels the Americas—Juan Wauters, ‘La Onda de Juan Pablo,’ 2019

April 28th, 2020|Country: Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, USA|

Montevideo-born Queens-based artist takes his incomparable aesthetic for a spin in his native region, creating an album of enlightened simplicity with musicians scouted in Central & South America

One Candidate’s Race for Office and Against the Disenfranchisement of Arab-Americans—‘Brooklyn Inshallah’, dir. Ahmed Mansour, 2018

April 23rd, 2020|Country: Palestine, USA|

A chronicle of a city council nomination campaign reveals complex truths about diversity, belonging and 9/11's traumatic heritage in Bay Ridge, one of NYC's most prominent Arab-American enclaves

Migrants Playing the Waiting Game In the Shadow of the Border Wall—‘Chèche Lavi’, dir. Sam Ellison, 2019

April 19th, 2020|Country: Haiti, Mexico, USA|

A portrait of two Haitian men seeking admission into the US in Tijuana becomes a complex reflection on the Beckettian nature of immigration’s bureaucracy and the sacrifices it demands

The Diminishing Returns of Migration and Love—‘Juanita’, dir. Leticia Tonos Paniagua, 2018

April 9th, 2020|Country: Dominican Republic, Spain|

An absorbing exploration of what it means to be a migrant woman or one of her loved ones told through a hybrid of a romantic comedy, Christmas film, and a homecoming narrative

A Guyanese Artist, His Communist Wife, Their Marvellous Lives, Wine Bar and Activism—Patrick Barrington

April 6th, 2020|Country: Guyana, United Kingdom|

How an art enthusiast helped us uncover a tremendous love story behind a striking self-portrait from Georgetown’s National Gallery of Art

The Great Black British Artist and the Fruit of Her Toils—Lubaina Himid

March 24th, 2020|Country: Comoros, Tanzania, United Kingdom|

A tireless scholar of the intersection of black identity and labor, visual artist Lubaina Himid creates work that has a lot to teach us about separating the self from production in the current moment

The Fantastic Story of South Sudan’s First Olympic Athlete—‘Runner’, dir. Bill Gallagher, 2019

March 9th, 2020|Country: South Sudan, USA|

A nuanced portrait of Guor Mading Maker, also known as Guor Marial, who survived the civil war and child slavery to become the first man from his country to participate in the Olympic Games

Artist From Dominica Explores the Onslaught of Discarded Clothing on the Planet—Pauline Marcelle’s ‘Bend Down Boutique’

March 8th, 2020|Country: Austria, Dominica|

Striking artworks bring attention to the untraced aspects of garment recycling and examine the oft-ignored class, racial and cultural implications of global pollution

Love in the Time of Capitalism and Migration—‘Atlantics’, dir. Mati Diop, 2019

March 2nd, 2020|Country: Belgium, France, Senegal|

The scion of Senegal's leading family of creators and her dark fairytale about love and justice for the working class that just might kick off a new Renaissance in the country's filmmaking industry

A Treasure of Ethnofiction from Acclaimed Portuguese Master and His Cabo Verdean muse—‘Vitalina Varela’, dir. Pedro Costa, 2019

February 27th, 2020|Country: Cabo Verde, Portugal|

A migrant's forgotten widow tries to process grief in a Lisbon slum where he used to live: a vigorous, visually-stunning work based on the leading lady's lived experiences

The Ordinary Double Life of a Teenage Somali Model in Budapest—‘Easy Lessons’, dir. Dorottya Zurbó, 2018

January 23rd, 2020|Country: Hungary, Somalia|

After her narrow escape from becoming a child bride in Somalia, 17-year-old Kafia is building her life anew in Hungary. But she fears that her emerging European identity is a betrayal of her roots

The Past, Present, and Future of Dance in the Muslim World—‘When Arabs Danced’, dir. Jawad Rhalib, 2018

January 20th, 2020|Country: Algeria, Belgium, France, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco|

Trailblazing performers from Arabic countries and Iran, as well as glimpses from the pre-hardline cultural landscapes in this tantalizing primer on the role dance plays in Islam-adjacent cultures

One Afghan Family’s Clandestine Perspective of the Contemporary Global Refugee Crisis in ‘Midnight Traveler’, dir. Hassan Fazili, 2019

January 14th, 2020|Country: Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey|

An urgent documentary about a family seeking asylum provides an intimate perspective of the way that countless people plea for state powers to recognize their humanity

Abkhazia	Congo-Brazzaville	Indonesia	New Zealand	Spain
Afghanistan	Costa Rica	Iran	Nicaragua	Sri Lanka
Albania	Côte d’Ivoire	Iraq	Niger	Sudan
Algeria	Croatia	Ireland	Nigeria	Suriname
Andorra	Cuba	Israel	Niue	Sweden
Angola	Cyprus	Italy	North Korea	Switzerland
Antigua-and-Barbuda	Czech Republic	Iwaidja People	North Ossetia	Syria
Argentina	Dagestan	Jamaica	Norway	Taiwan
Armenia	Denmark	Japan	Oman	Tajikistan
Arrernte	Dominica	Jordan	Pakistan	Tamil Nadu
Aruba	Dominican Republic	Kanak People	Palestine	Tanzania
Australia	DR Congo	Karelia	Panama	Tatarstan
Austria	Dunghutti People	Kashmir	Papua New Guinea	Thailand
Azerbaijan	Ecuador	Kazakhstan	Paraguay	Tibet
Bahamas	Eelam Tamil	Kenya	Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians	Timor-Leste
Bahrain	Egypt	Kosovo	Peru	Tiwi Islands
Balochistan	El Salvador	Kurdistan	Philippines	Togo
Bangladesh	Estonia	Kyrgyzstan	Poland	Tonga
Barbados	Eswatini	Laos	Portugal	Torres Strait Islands
Bashkortostan	Ethiopia	Latvia	Puerto Rico	Transnistria
Belarus	Faroe Islands	Lebanon	Qatar	Trinidad and Tobago
Belgium	Fiji	Liberia	Rapa Nui	Tunisia
Belize	Finland	Libya	Reunion	Turkey
Benin	France	Lithuania	Roma	Turkmenistan
Bermuda	French Guiana	Luxembourg	Romania	Tuvalu
Bhutan	Gabon	Macedonia	Russia	Uganda
Biripi People	Gambia	Madagascar	Rwanda	Ukraine
Bolivia	Garifuna Nation	Malak Malak People	Saint Kitts and Nevis	United Kingdom
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Garrwa People	Malawi	Saint Lucia	Uruguay
Botswana	Georgia	Malaysia	Saint Vincent and The Grenadines	USA
Brazil	Germany	Mali	Samoa	Uyghur Nation
Brunei	Ghana	Malta	San Marino	Uzbekistan
Bulgaria	Golan Heights	Māori	Sao Tome and Principe	Vanuatu
Burkina Faso	Greece	Martinique	Saudi Arabia	Venezuela
Burundi	Greenland	Mauritania	Scotland	Vietnam
Buryatia	Grenada	Mauritius	Senegal	Wales
Cabo Verde	Guatemala	Mexico	Serbia	Wallis and Futuna
Cambodia	Guinea	Moldova	Sierra Leone	Water
Cameroon	Guyana	Monaco	Singapore	Yemen
Canada	Haida Gwaii	Morocco	Slovakia	Yöruk People
Central African Republic	Haiti	Mozambique	Slovenia	Zambia
Chad	Ho-Chunk Nation	Myanmar	Solomon Islands	Zimbabwe
Chile	Honduras	Namibia	Somalia
China	Hong Kong	Native American Tribes	South Africa
Chinook Nation	Hungary	Nepal	South Korea
Colombia	Iceland	Netherlands	South Ossetia
Comoros	India	New Caledonia	South Sudan

MIGRATION

ISSUES