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In Postwar Chad, Vengeance Is Served With Freshly Baked Bread, by a Boy With a Gun—‘Dry Season’, Dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, 2006

In the aftermath of the Chadian war, a young man looks to avenge his father's death but instead finds a father figure in this stunning parable about the humanity hiding beneath the scar tissue

August 6th, 2020|Country: Austria, Belgium, Chad, France|

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wool Over the Eyes—‘This Magnificent Cake!’, dir. Emma De Swaef & Marc James Roels, 2018

Whimsical felt puppet fantasy from filmmaking couple tackles colonization of Congo by Belgian King Leopold in a graceful satirical exploration of the chaos that ineptitude sows

February 6th, 2020|Country: Belgium, DR Congo, France, Netherlands, South Africa|

A Dog’s Heart—‘Marona’s Fantastic Tale’, dir. Anca Damian, 2019

Abstract art meets unconditional love in an animated film about a dog's history living with humans: a dazzling all-age feature from Romanian auteur and an international team of visual artists

February 4th, 2020|Country: Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Romania, Spain|

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

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

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

Film: The Last Male on Earth, dir. Floor van der Meulen, 2019

As the last male northern white rhino in existence nears the end of his life, humans hurry to revive the extinct species in a tragicomic farce of conservation efforts in this observant documentary

November 25th, 2019|Country: Belgium, Germany, Kenya, Netherlands|

Film: Funan, dir. Denis Do, 2018

Cambodian genocide as experienced by the members of one family in an animation based on the director's mother's memories of the Khmer Rouge—with voice acting from Louis Garrell and Bérénice Bejo

October 18th, 2019|Country: Belgium, Cambodia, France, Luxembourg|

Book: Zidrou and Aimée de Jongh, Blossoms in Autumn, 2018

A graphic novel about a romance between two people past their middle age that combines sensuality and complexity: a refreshing, necessary take on modern love and its boundless possibilities

August 24th, 2019|Country: Belgium, Netherlands|

Film: Mama Bobo, dir. Ibrahima Seydi and Robin Andelfinger, 2017

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

July 21st, 2019|Country: Belgium, France, Senegal|

Film: The Mercy of the Jungle, dir. Joël Karekezi, 2018

Two Rwandan soldiers try to survive the jungle after being separated from their platoon during the Second Congo War in the first all-black anti-war film from a young and promising Rwandan talent

June 24th, 2019|Country: Belgium, DR Congo, France, Rwanda|

Book: Tom Lanoye, Speechless, 2009

One of Belgium’s foremost writers makes a hybrid memoir about his larger than life mother, her harrowing illness before death, and him coming out to her in petty bourgeoisie surroundings

June 18th, 2019|Country: Belgium|

Film: Chez Jolie Coiffure, dir. Rosine Mbakam, 2018

A documentary, centered on a Cameroonian migrant in Belgium and her salon, reveals the many nuances and problems in west-bound migration

June 12th, 2019|Country: Belgium, Cameroon|

Book: Jean-Philippe Stassen, The Children, 2004

An unsettling graphic novel about children growing up amid postcolonial madness

April 12th, 2019|Country: Belgium|

Book: Olivier Schrauwen, The Man Who Grew His Beard, 2011

June 4th, 2018|Country: Belgium|