Films to Watch
a compilation of all the good stuff!!
I am behind on all the big movies so far so let’s catch up on the things I have been watching!! It’s been a while!
First up, there was the 11th Annual Human Rights Film Festival held at my university. This is done in collaboration with Amnesty International and the Human Rights Studies Minor. Here was the film schedule!
Speaking of Film Festivals, I also watched the Human Rights Watch Film Festival Digital Edtion and they had a fantastic line up:
Through The Night (Loira Limbal): “Across the US, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, people have been working longer hours across multiple jobs just to pay the rent. This reality of non-stop work has resulted in an unexpected phenomenon: the flourishing of 24-hour daycare centers. Dee’s Tots Daycare, a home-based center in a New York suburb, has become a lifeline for families in the community. Through intimate stories of two working mothers and their beloved caregiver, Nunu, we see how this daycare patches up the gaping holes in a threadbare social safety net and provides a personal response to an urgent problem. Uncover the close bonds forged between parents, children, and caregivers. Director Loira Limbal, herself a single parent who made the film while holding down a full-time job, captures a quietly damning portrait of a merciless economy’s effect on working-class mothers and turns a much-needed spotlight on these unsung heroes.”
After you watch, give to this fund for essential childcare workers.
A Reckoning in Boston (James Rutenbeck): “In the fall of 2014, Kafi Dixon and Carl Chandler enrolled in a rigorous night course in the humanities at a community center in their Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. Kafi, 44, sharp, witty and restless, dropped out of school at 15. She dreams of starting a land cooperative in Boston for women of color who have experienced trauma and disenfranchisement. Carl, 65, a community elder and doting grandfather, is the class’s intellectual leader. White suburban filmmaker James Rutenbeck comes to Dorchester to document the students’ engagement with their course, but as he is awakened to the violence, racism, and gentrification that threaten their place in the city, he is forced to come to terms with his flawed film premise and his own complicity in racist structures. Spending more time listening than filming, James enlists Kafi and Carl as producers of the film. Five years on, despite many personal obstacles, Kafi and Carl arrive at surprising new places in their lives, and, following their lead, James does too. Bringing to light the foundations of systemic racism in one community that has spanned generations, A Reckoning in Boston shows that transformation, healing, and social change begins within each of us.”
I Am Samuel (Peter Murimi): “Samuel grew up on a farm in the Kenyan countryside, where tradition is valued above all else. He moves to Nairobi in search of a new life, where he finds belonging in a community of fellow queer men where he meets and falls in love with Alex. Their love thrives even though Kenyan laws criminalize anyone who identifies as LGBTQ, and together they face threats of violence and rejection. Samuel’s father, a preacher at the local church, doesn’t understand why his son is not yet married and Samuel must navigate the very real risk that being truthful to who he is may cost him his family’s acceptance. Filmed over five years, I Am Samuel is an intimate portrait of a Kenyan man balancing pressures of family loyalty, love, and safety and questioning the concept of conflicting identities.”
Talking About Trees (Suhaib Gasmelbari): “For the last 30 years in Sudan, cinema has been banned. After a military coup, cinemas were closed, filmmakers arrested and the careers of four Sudanese friends and promising filmmakers were halted before they began. The freedom to make and share films is their driving passion, and one they long to bring back to Sudan. On a mission to revitalize the country’s film culture, this dedicated group of friends decide to rent a dilapidated, old open-air cinema for a large, free screening of a Hollywood film. But can this committed group of friends pull off their first public film screening in a country where government approval is needed, power cuts are frequent, there is no film equipment, and calls to prayer drown out the sound of the film? This beautifully shot feature debut about the value of cultural history, freedom of expression, and the cultural and political power of being able to see something on the big screen, couldn’t be more timely.”
Missing In Brooks County (Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss): “Seventy miles north of the Mexican-US border lies Brooks County, Texas. As the national debate over immigration policy simmers to a boil, its practical consequences are felt in Brooks County every day. The site of an estimated 3000 deaths since 2008, migrants choose this route to circumvent the state’s busiest interior immigration checkpoint and find themselves diverted by a military-style barricade that leads them into the surrounding harsh desert terrain. As a result, between 300 and 600 migrants succumb to dehydration and exposure here every year. Only one in five is ever found. Missing in Brooks County follows the journey of two families who come to look for their loved ones, only to find a mystery that deepens at every turn. The film is a potent reminder of the life and death consequences of a broken immigration system.”
Outside of documentaries I have been watching a couple of films. Emphasis on the ‘couple’ aka two:
Coming 2 America (This was fun, but of course the original is so much better)
What have you been watching lately? Let me know!
cover photo from https://unsplash.com/@thomasw