A dessert for Constance

A film that uses comedy as a way to combat racist stereotypes and outdated nationalist ideas, such as the concept of culinary prowess, through a look at the daily lives of African migrants in Paris.

L’ Hôpital de Léningrad

A story of political imprisonment set in a mental hospital where the Stalin state police placed whoever their opponents were. The narrative is true to the original text, a short story by the Russian writer Victor Serge. In this film, Maldoror directs Roger Blin, Rüdiger Vogler and Anne Wiazemsky. The jazz soundtrack is by Jean-Yves Bosseur and Jean-Louis Chautemps.

Le passager du Tassili

A telefilm that faithfully adapts Akli Tadjer’s novel, Les A.N.I du Tassili — “unidentified Algerians”, indicates, the acronym. Like the book, the film follows an Algerian who grew up in France, but will visit the birthplace. He eventually returns, along with the ANI returning from their vacations to go back to the Parisian banlieues, happy to be there.

Carnival in the Sahel

Carnival is an event and a festivity where the limits can be transgressed in a context brimming with music, sensations and textures. In this film, it is also a starting point for an approach on the history of black culture and colonialism, with concepts of identity and blackness taking center stage.

Le cimetière du Père Lachaise

Sarah Maldoror’s camera roams the famous flagstones and foliage of Père Lachaise, visiting its nooks and cats, to the sound of poems such as Liberté, by Paul Éluard.

Louis Aragon, a Mask in Paris

In this documentary, Sarah Maldoror interviews Louis Aragon, a poet and a key figure in French surrealism. At the same time, she questions how the surrealist movement – in the periods between and post-war – faced the racial issue, the “other” and the affirmation of other identities.

Scala Milan A.C.

A journey from the Parisian outskirts to the Scala operatic theater in Milan. A film that takes a rap by Archie Shepp (American jazz saxophonist and playwright) to build a melodious reflection on social inclusion in the suburbs of Paris.

Catatonia

A metaphor for the precarious labor conditions experienced by a generation represented through three friends. One of them, surviving on odd jobs to make ends meet, finds Ivo, a friend who seems completely catatonic or sleepwalking. A saga to help him begins.

Fold

Hands searching the green moss, feet treading dead and crunchy logs, stones turned in search of hidden treasures, a frog nudged until it runs away. This is Dobra’s visual and aural universe, but the door opens for something darker to enter.

Miraflores

With an introduction that seems inspired by the most daring Apatow-ian moments, it is a film that evokes, at the same time, a place – its namesake –, the people who live in it, but, above all, an adolescent moment between innocence and what will come in the future.

depth wish

The search for a spot where you can feel the freedom of escape. The sea, and the beings that inhabit it, can be that place.

If what I hear is silence

At the end of a long road trip in Greece, words disappear. A mother, a daughter, a
friend, and the silence between them. The film catch them precisely when the silence replaces their own words. The three passengers reach their final destination.

July 96

July is the month of Sophie’s beach vacation, with her mother and cousin. The mere three years that separate Sophie’s 11 and the cousin’s 14 years old lead to new experiences, with less playtime and castles in the sand.

Ana Mercedes Hoyos

Metal fruit bowls and paintings representing the banana. Colombian artist Ana Mercedes Hoyos talks about her influences in a documentary that does not forget issues such as slavery and Afro-Caribbean cultures.

Toto Bissainthe

A portrait of Haitian singer Toto Bissainthe, whose musical journey is marked by her desire todisseminate creole singing.

Eia pour Césaire

After the death of the poet and activist Aimé Césaire, friend and subject of many of her films, Sarah Maldoror revisits points of the globe where he traveled to. The film includes interviews with family members and excerpts from her films with and about the poet.

O Princípio, o Meio, o Fim e o Infinito

Two (but are they two?) beings, with faces wrapped in gauze and clearly out of their own Time and Space, take advantage of their stay in Lisbon to reflect on colonialism, social inequality and other key topics.

Regards de mémoire

Documentary with the poets Édouard Glissant and Aimé Césaire, which also includes interviews with the writer Roland Suvélor and the politician Madeleine de Grandmaison. Greg Germain, actor and director, reads poems.