Colonial Times(1976)

Pierre Clément, Cinéma et Révolution(ar)

Pierre Clément, student and photographer of René Vauthier, first accompanied him to Tunisia to make a film on the country's independence in 1957. Destiny led him to Algeria and his presence in February 1958 at the Tunisian-Algerian border changed his life. . Forever. He took his camera and photographed the attacks on Sakia Sidi Youssef before committing himself body and soul to the Algerian cause. Shortly after, he directed the film “Algerian Refugees” before being arrested, tortured and imprisoned, while his third film, “The National Liberation Army in Almaki”, was not finished. Abdel Nour Zahzah, a director who commemorates Pierre Clément, the director who risked his life, the brother of the Algerian resistance, who disappeared in 2007.

Algeria in Flames(ar)

These are the first images shot in the ALN maquis, camera in hand, at the end of 1956 and in 1957. These war images taken in the Aurès-Nementchas are intended to be the basis of a dialogue between French and Algerians for peace in Algeria, by demonstrating the existence of an armed organization close to the people. Three versions of Algeria in Flames are produced: French, German and Arabic. From the end of the editing, the film circulates without any cuts throughout the world, except in France where the first screening takes place in the occupied Sorbonne in 1968. Certain images of the film have circulated and are found in films, in particular Algerian films. Because of the excitement caused by this film, he was forced to go into hiding for 25 months. After the declaration of independence, he founded the first Algerian Audiovisual Center.

Volver a Volver(es)

The Sykora family are only four people out of millions of Venezuelans that have recently escaped their collapsing country. They land in the Czech Republic, the country where Grandpa Jan was born, but also a place utterly strange to them. In a matter of months their savings have almost gone and job seeking becomes a nightmare. Again, the dream of just having a normal life starts to vanish. Will the family manage not to crumble along the way?

4th of July on Quileute Tribal Lands(en)

In a strange twist of irony, Americans celebrate their independence on the sovereign lands of the Quileute People. An ambient soundscape coupled with the opening shot of an adjoining RV park work in unison to reveal an alien invasion on the shores of Quileute Tribal Lands.

A Propos D'Un Crime(fr)

In 1967, Visconti came to Algiers for the filming of The Stranger with Mastroianni and Anna Karina. Camus, during his lifetime, had always refused to allow one of his novels to be brought to the screen. His family made another decision. The filming of the film was experienced in Algiers, like a posthumous return of the writer to Algiers. During filming, a young filmmaker specializing in documentaries Gérard Patris attempts a report on the impact of the filming of The Stranger on the Algerians. Interspersed with sequences from the shooting of Visconti's film, he films Poncet, Maisonseul, Bénisti and Sénac, friends of Camus, in full discussions to situate Camus and his work in a sociological and historical context. “The idea is for us to show people, others, ourselves as if they could all be Meursault, or at least the witnesses concerned to his drama.”

The Zerda or the Songs of Forgetting(fr)

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

CHoosing at Twenty(fr)

Between 1954-1962, one hundred to three hundred young French people refused to participate in the Algerian war. These rebels, soldiers or conscripts were non-violent or anti-colonialists. Some took refuge in Switzerland where Swiss citizens came to their aid, while in France they were condemned as traitors to the country. In 1962, a few months after Independence, Villi Hermann went to a region devastated by war near the Algerian-Moroccan border, to help rebuild a school. In 2016 he returned to Algeria and reunited with his former students. He also met French refractories, now living in France or Switzerland.

Swing con Son(es)

Music documentary about Billo Frómeta by director Rafael Marziano Tinoco from Venezuela.

In the Shadow of the Serengeti(en)

A Maasai human rights lawyer fights to stop the evictions of his people from their homelands in Tanzania. On the outskirts of Serengeti National Park in East Africa, Maasai face eviction from their land to make way for international tourism and hunting grounds. Human rights lawyer Joseph Oleshangay campaigns for his community to remain on its homeland as it has done for generations. While he represents Maasai communities in court, Joseph also remains close to his traditions among the cattle at his rural home near the Ngorongoro Crater. Risking his life to gather evidence from recently depopulated villages, Joseph battles in court where he leads the fight to resist the evictions.

El Paraíso(es)

The film consists of video tapes made by the filmmaker’s father documenting daily scenes of family life, family celebrations, and holidays over the course of fifteen years. The tapes are a mixture of the personal and the political – the father was politically engaged in the revolutionary movement that brought Hugo Chávez to power. The family’s life becomes a backdrop for political and economic developments in Venezuela and their impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.

Be Water(en)

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.

Etched in Bone(en)

Drawing on original footage from National Geographic, Etched in Bone explores the impact of one notorious bone theft by a member of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. Hundred of bones were stolen and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, until it became known to Arnhem elders in the late 1990s. The return of the sacred artefacts was called for, resulting in a tense standoff between indigenous tribespeople and the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian.

Land der Bitterkeit und des Stolzes(de)

A polemic against Werner Herzog and the making of "Fitzcarraldo", exploring the question of the filmmaker's ethical and moral responsibility.

Timuti(iu)

In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in the Eastern Arctic, a baby boy has come into the world and they call him Timuti, a name that recurs across generations of his people, evoking other Timutis, alive and dead, who will nourish his spirit and shape his destiny.

Moving Ice(en)

Ice has always moved. When glaciation took hold some 34 million years ago, interconnected rivers of ice combined to produce the Earth's vast ice sheets. As temperatures slowly warmed glaciers developed a unique balancing act; advancing and retreating to calibrate their annual winter accumulation against summer melt. Sometimes calving colossal icebergs into the sea. A positive feedback loop that has regulated the movement of ice for millions of years.

Hacking at Leaves(en)

Hacking at Leaves documents artist and hazmat-suit aficionado Johannes Grenzfurthner as he attempts to come to terms with the United States' colonial past, Navajo tribal history, and the hacker movement. The story hones in on a small tinker space in Durango, Colorado, that made significant contributions to worldwide COVID relief efforts. But things go awry when Uncle Sam interferes with the film's production.

Dawn of the Damned(fr)

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

Cao Bang, les soldats sacrifiés d'Indochine(fr)

Viva Venezuela: Fighting for Socialism(en)

We live in a world dominated by crisis, imperialist war and exploitation. We're told there is no alternative to cuts, privatisation, hunger and homelessness. The Bolivarian Revolution illustrates what can be achieved when governments and people working together, put human need before capitalist profits. Despite Chavez's death in 2013, the process is being built every day by President Maduro and millions of Venezuelans working to create a society built on collective socialist organisation and production. Venezuela provides an inspiring example of how the fight against austerity can develop into a fight for socialism. This film takes you on that journey through the barrios, universities and workplaces to meet the political activists, students and workers who are changing their future. Alongside the achievements of socialist Cuba, Venezuela shows that not only is another world possible, but this world is being built today in Latin America.

Venezuela Jungle Jam(en)

The latest film from the Belgian climbing team, following Asgard Jamming and Vertical Sailing Greenland, Venezuela Jungle Jam features Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll, Nico Favresse, Stephane Hanssens and Jean-Louis Wertz as they attempt a new free climb on the overhanging 500m wall of Amuri Tepul in the Venezuelan Jungle.