In the right hands, a camera can be a weapon—a weapon of liberation, an instrument of freedom. This series examines a movement in the 60s and 70s, of filmmakers of the Global South radically confront ideas of decolonization, revolution, and class inequalities (both of their past and present) through their art. These directors were as varied in their approaches as they were in the topics they covered and parts of the world that they came from. Decades later, the elites that were satirized, liberation movements documented, and cautionary tales told are no less relevant or resonant. This series presents highlights of the visionary work that would touch the world and leave a lasting impact.
All films will be accompanied by a post-screening discussion at one of the two screenings.
WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY
Anny-Dominique Curtius (5/5)
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
Meriam Belli and Zach Vanes (5/15)
HUNDRED FACES FOR A SINGLE DAY
Yasmine Ramadan and Adey Almohsen (5/23)
BLACK GOD, WHITE DEVIL
Kathleen Newman and Rachael L. Pasierowska (5/30)
This vast musical fresco covers hundreds of years of history from enslavement to 20th-century immigration. Set on an enormous slave ship and boasts a dazzling array of brilliant choreography, wide-ranging musical styles and sharp satire.
A history of the three-year Battle of Algiers, chronicling the escalating terrorism and violence between French military forces and the Algerian independence movement, based on the memoirs of Saadi Yacef, a leader of the National Liberation Front.
Rejecting propagandistic or narrative convention, documentary and abstract sequences combine with a series of discontinuous plot lines to organize a stinging attack on the bourgeois decadence of Beirut's political milieu.
After killing his employer when he tries to cheat him out of his payment, a man becomes an outlaw and starts following a self-proclaimed saint.