A spin on The Metamorphosis, Feathers tells the story of a family struggling to cope in the absence of a male head of household. A grim and gritty drama with a long streak of magical realism, the film’s main character is a silent and dutiful wife and mother, who tries to provide for her three…
Set in Paris in the 1990s, Honey Cigar follows Selma, an Algerian-French college student, on her sexual awakening. A coming of age film about family, identity, misogyny, and a sense of home both within yourself and without. Selma walks between worlds, her parents’ Algerian home where even to kiss a boy is scandalous, and the…
In Digging For Life, Tommy Germain narrates his life story, of leaving home to start life in South Africa and being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the diamond mines of Angola. Tommy grew up in Limbe, Cameroon. His family was large, he was one of 9 kids, so as soon as he was grown,…
If Heaven Reaches Down To Earth is a visual poem, The White Death of the Black Wizard is a visual eulogy. The text displayed on screen are exerts from the suicide note of Timoteo, an Afro-Brazilian slave who died in Salvador in 1861. The film mixes contemporary and archival footage, some of which is damaged…
A visual poem. As two friends backpack across the beautiful South African landscape, the narration speaks poetry about passion. The shots in this are just stunning, and the sexual tension between the two actors is palpable. Just gorgeous.
The main character goes out to meet a Grindr date at a gay club called Cosmopolitan. The entire short film is basically composed of this one scene of him trying to get into the club. He’s the only Black guy in the queue and this proves a problem for admittance. An indictment of racism within…
A few days before Issa is about to be released from prison, a new fish appears, Gaetan. This short film encapsulates a world of drama. You can see a history stretching behind and a future ahead, and these scenes as the turning point between it all. To begin, prison is the place where Issa has…
Using animation and archival footage, Half A Life is a short film in which a gay Egyptian guy discusses what instigated him to get into activism and what he thinks about his country. After witnessing a homophobic attack, with the collusion of the police, the main character takes the shame and helplessness he feels and…
Tang Jer is a short film about a vampire’s roadside cafe. The film mixes the surreal and the everyday, so the busy businesswoman reads cowries and uses her divinations to guide her investments. A chicken walks in and demands to be fed but is unemployed and cannot pay. A strange little girl does her homework…
Waited til Halloween to watch Juju Stories. An anthology film of 3 stories of the supernatural. In the first, a woman casts a love spell on her crush, but is he the man she wants? In the second, a pair of scoundrels are cursed to receive punishment for their misdeeds. And in the last, a…