Jeanne went with her six-year-old daughter to Majorca because it was cheap. And also to give her daughter something interesting to write about on the schoolwork about her vacation. But frustrations arise that bring this mother closer to her breaking point.
A love story is always a ghost story and this story is haunted by a relationship that has recently ended and a pet that has died. An email movingly narrated, tinged by the blues of the Super8 images.
The light/dark dichotomy is not just a metaphor apt to be used by Star Wars fans, but a way for Haig Aivazian to analyze two components whose public administration can be transformed into a policing tool — from gas lanterns to blackouts and curfews.
With three generations living under the same roof, and in the claustrophobia of a small village in Kosovo, Venera is a teenager with little privacy or space to live her life and explore her emotions. The discreet camera work brings intimacy to a story where growing up means making choices.
From mountaineers to miners, and now ignorant, jobless hillbillies. This is how Brian Ritchie describes a generation of Appalachian people, embracing the stereotypes that are imputed to them, but also revealing a type of life in the mountains with a poetic charge difficult to catalog.
Shiva is a weeklong period of mourning for the Jewish religion and also an opportunity to honor those who have passed away as well as their family. This acerbic comedy puts a young Jewish woman in the thankless position of having to face the most claustrophobic shiva possible, where she finds herself confronted with an ex-girlfriend, a secret sugar daddy and multiple snooping relatives.
Koberidze’s camera brings poetry to the most everyday gestures, in an ode to love, football and cinema. In this film in the form of a modern folktale, two people fall in love in a classic meet cute moment, but find themselves cursed, condemned to not recognize each other.
Louis’ shoes are more than just shoes. They are a way of seeing the world in an orderly fashion and of giving meaning to what he doesn’t understand or sees differently. This is a film that gives space to the story of a boy with autism, where small gestures mean a lot.
Monsieur is a dog. But a dog that nobody sees. Only his owner. His owner and a boy who usually greets him in the park. When Monsieur disappears … how are they going to find him?
“What happened? – “You were just born”. “And where did I come from?” – “From an egg”. “And before that?” – “From a bird”. “And before that?”
For several brand new, just-hatched animals of different species – such as the owl, the turtle, the salamander or the beaver – the world is a fresh and mysterious place, with all its magic and danger, ready to be discovered.
Anna and Manon have plans for after the summer camp. Specific plans to visit an aunt and imagined plans to live in a cave on the beach, never having to be apart. But when the imagined plans seem to become the real ones, their friendship is tested.
Nicolas imagines other worlds, far from his daily routine. He prefers to dream of Ulysses or Jack London’s travels. Imagining that he, too, will be able to travel far away. Nicolas is Sabrina’s son, but he was taken from his mother and placed in a foster home. The days pass, punctuated by events, such as seeing his mother or going to the woods with his friend Saef. But Nicolas continues adrift.
A raw documentary about Delphine, a young Cameroonian woman who is carrying a suffering that has sprouted horns. Rosine Mbakam’s camera keeps its eye on Delphine, without looking away or illustrating what she expresses. Cameroonian-born and Belgium-based, Mbakam and her cinema, which has focused on the migrant experience, explore themes such as the weight and dominance of patriarchal societies over African women and the Western culture’s sexual, colonial exploitation.
We are in 1961, at the beginning of the war for Angolan independence. Domingos Xavier is a revolutionary arrested by the Portuguese military and taken to a prison in Sambizanga. His wife, Maria, seeks him out, fearing he may have been subjected to torture, or even death. A film that shows the liberation of Angola through the eyes of a woman.
With a jazz soundtrack from the Art Ensemble of Chicago, this film denounces the crimes committed by the Portuguese in Angola. Here, we see the torture of a prisoner that results from the colonizar’s ignorance. A song whose meaning is “White Death”, Monangambée is a rallying cry against the colonial abuses in Angola.
Aimé Césaire was a surrealist, essayist, activist and one of the founders of the négritude movement, a progressive artistic and political current that defended black culture, strongly tied to marxist and anti-colonial ideals.
A documentary short that focuses on how the inhabitants of Guinea-Bissau view their black identity and culture, with the annual Carnival celebration as a backdrop.
Ilha do Fogo, in Cape Verde, is the setting for this documentary from the 70s produced by the revolutionary government of the new country, and in which the director chose an anthropological approach. The film looks beautifully at a country in the beginning of its independence.