A Displaced Child Prodigy’s Imagination Offers Ideas For Our Collective Future—‘Anbessa’, dir. Mo Scarpelli, 2019November 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, 2019September 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. BlairSeptember 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, 2018August 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, 2019August 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, 2019July 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-KayodeJune 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,’ 2020June 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, 2019June 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 HomelandJune 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 KushnerMay 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, 2019May 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
Nothing Great About Great Britain: Alienation by Belonging in Zia Haider Rahman’s ‘In the Light of What We Know’, 2014January 13th, 2020|Country: Bangladesh, United Kingdom|A debut novel about a man trying to find acceptance despite the class and race separations is dense with thoughts and revelations, steeped in ice-cold loneliness—an outsider's usual bedfellow
Pain Is Stronger Than Homophobia—‘Tu Me Manques’, dir. Rodrigo Bellott, 2019December 19th, 2019|Country: Bolivia, USA|A father seeks to get to know his dead gay son, as the son's ex creates a play that will change the country in a nesting doll of autobiographical narrative and fiction from Bolivia's leading director
Namibian Artist Tuli Mekondjo Creates a Space Where Her Fractured Identity Can Be Whole AgainDecember 17th, 2019|Country: Namibia|Born in exile during the country's war for independence, the interdisciplinary artist seeks to find ways to belong and to explore trauma through works of striking beauty and proximity to the earth
Poet, Artist, Two-Spirit, Immigrant, Sex Worker, Human—‘The Journey of Monalisa’, dir. Nicole Costa, 2019December 10th, 2019|Country: Chile, USA|Filmmaker tracks down her college friend from Chile in New York and creates a portrait of life full of integrity and dignity in circumstances which are not usually considered conventional
From Beslan hostage to hip-hop artist—Indi, ‘Perviy’, 2019December 5th, 2019|Country: North Ossetia, Russia|A survivor of the Beslan school siege and chronic illness creates soulful hip-hop about love, faith, and perseverance, blending Moscow moodiness with Caucasus mountains flair
Daughters of Mujahideen in ‘Before Father Gets Back’, dir. Mari Gulbiani, 2019December 4th, 2019|Country: France, Georgia, Germany|An intimate portrait of two girls in a Georgian village who come of age and learn about the beauty of cinema, while their fathers are in Syria fighting for mujahideen groups