MYOPIA

Fatem, sixth month pregnant, leaves her village perched in the mountains, to fill a frame with empty glasses for the elder of her village, the only person who can decipher the letters sent by members of the villagers’ families who have gone to work in the cities. She moves from station to station to arrive in town in the middle of a protest. This will turn her trip into a peaceful revolution that she is hardly aware of.

Directed by Sanaa Akroud, Morocco 2020, 86min, drama, Arabic w/English subtitles

"A beautifully observed meditation on faith, perseverance and integrity, Moroccan director Sanae Akroud’s sophomore feature is an immersive and heart-breaking unique female saga. " ~ The Brazilian

"This film, which carries beautiful qualities of image and lighting, speaks of poverty, of the feminine condition and of a happiness so simple that one can hardly grasp its meaning nowadays. ~ La Presse

"Fatem is played by Sanaa Akroud, also the film's director. Akroud was in the acclaimed 2011 Egyptian film "Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story". In "Myopia" she is brilliant as our unsettlingly passive villager, whether inquiring about a letter from an absent husband or when wandering innocently through the city in search of an eyeglass shop." ~ Barbara Nimri Aziz

"She will be questioned by the police, defended by an association, interviewed by a journalist… She is accused of having endangered her baby, she is asked some of the most intrusive questions, but each person applies their own way of thinking - myopia of a society incapable of perceiving its difference. Agressive police officers falsely accused, activists urging her to press charges, sensationalist journalist who transforms news, even a listening minister… none understand that she only wants to fix the glasses." ~ Olivier Barlet

"It is in listening to these women that Sanaa Akroud wrote this script which she both interprets and directs. Apart from the interviews, she does it with few words. Wolfango Alfi's sequence shots respond to this desire to account for the time taken by everyday acts. They contribute to the open-mindedness called for by this film without a clear message, if not to invite people to understand that an equivocation is not a limit but a complexity." ~ Olivier Barlet

"This story is sure to resonate with many American viewers learning about the depth of racial disparities and the flaws in U.S. democracy where agents of ‘liberal’ society and opposition parties once again reach out to Black and Brown Americans and immigrants with shallow promises of equality and reform." ~ Barbara Nimri Aziz

NAMES
LIVE NOWHERE

Director: Dominique Loreau
From: Belgium
Year: 1994  Minutes: 76
Language: French with English subtitles
Genre: docu-drama

In this film whose title is a Senegalese proverb, a griot (story teller) traveling from Dakar to Brussels weaves a tale about African expatriates and offers a candid look at the life of African immigrants in Belgium. With Sotigui Kouyate - a real life griot - as the story teller.

16mm rental: $250
DVD sale: $195

Naomi's Journey Trailer - ArtMattan Films from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

NAOMI'S JOURNEY

Twenty-year old Naomi lives a simple life with her younger siblings in Peru. Only her big sister seems to live a life of fortune, being married in Germany. But now she is dead, murdered by her German husband.

Stunned by the news, Naomi can't imagine accompanying her mother to Germany, the land of the crime. But then she changes her mind, becomes a joint plaintiff, and takes part in the trial in Berlin.

In Naomi's Journey Frieder Schleich (Otomo) continues to explore the life of immigrants in Germany.  His staging of a realistic trial using real-life lawyers illustrates the inner working of the German justice system and its dispassionate proceedings. 

"The film follows the murder trial of a young South American woman within the framework of a hidden women and marriage trafficking market. The film is about justice and objectivity in the German legal system." ~ Hof international film festival

Directed by Frieder Schlaich, 2018, Germany / Peru, 93min, legal thriller, German and Spanish with English subtitles.

"The director composes a haunting puzzle about moral standards, trust and cultural clashes." ~ Brazilian Press

"Rising star Scarlett Jaimes gives a compelling performance in the title role presenting the turbulence of a fragile young lady with brilliant nuance." ~ Brazilian Press

"It's a gripping, accurate courtroom drama." ~ Brazilian Press

NATAL DA PORTELA

NELIO'S STORY 

THE LAST TREE tells the compelling coming-of-age story of a Black British boy of Nigerian descent in London.  In GLORIOUS EXIT Jarreth Merz, a Swiss-Nigerian actor living in Los Angeles, is summoned to Nigeria to bury his father.

THE LAST TREE

Femi, a British boy of Nigerian descent who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire with his white foster mother, moves to inner London to live with his Nigerian mum.

Struggling with the unfamiliar culture and values of his new environment, teenage Femi has to figure out which path to adulthood he wants to take, and what it means to be a young black man in London.

Going back home to Nigeria with his mum to find his Nigerian roots will help adolescent Femi find grounding and hope for a better future.

Directed by Shola Amoo, 2019, UK, 98 min, drama, English.

Second film in DVD:

GLORIOUS EXIT

NIGHT OF DESTINY 

NO TIME TO DIE 

Official Selection ACID Cannes Film Festival 2023!

Nome is a historical drama directed by Sana Na N'Hada and written by Virgílio Almeida and Olivier Marboeuf. The story takes place in Guinea-Bissau in 1969, during the war of independence between the Portuguese colonial army and the guerrillas of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea.

The protagonist, Nome, leaves his village and joins the ranks of the guerrillas. After years of struggle, he returns to his village as a hero. However, the initial joy soon gives way to bitterness and cynicism.

By Sana Na N'Hada,  Guinea-Bissau/France/Portugal/Angola, 2023, 117min, Drama, Portuguese w/ English subtitles

"Nome  is a film over 50 years in the making. In the late 60s, revolutionary Bissau-Guinean Marxist leader Amílcar Cabral sent filmmakers Sana na N’Hada, Flora Gomes, Josefina Lopes Crato and José Bolama to Cuba. To help change international public opinion against the Portuguese colonial regime, they returned to the country to document the struggle. This archive footage forms the basis for the fiction Nome, N’hada following its eponymous character as he joins the resistance movement. 

Perhaps Cabral, had he lived to see this movie (assassinated in 1973), would be disappointed, as Na N’hada, returning to one of his first filmmaking projects, complicates a simple resister narrative into a more complex tale of post-colonial legacy and the true cost of war. Things get particularly messy when the occupation is over, colonial occupation giving way to corruption and petty gangsterism on the streets of Bissau, issues that have plagued the country until this day. 

Independence, it seems, is just the start. " ~ ACID Cannes 2023

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH 

OTOMO 

PAPA'S SONG

Paris Noir - African Americans In The City Of Light series intro trailer from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

PARIS NOIR: AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS

PLACIDO, THE BLOOD OF THE POET 

QUILOMBO

Race and its impact on the art and history of Brazil are highlighted in this two-disc set with Joel Zito Araujo's documentary Denying Brazil (A Negacao do Brasil, 92 mins) and Geraldo Santos Pereira's Aleijadinho: Passion, Glory and Torment (Aleijadinho: Paixao, Gloria e Suplicio, 100 mins.)

Denying Brazil
A Negacao do Brasil

A documentary film about the taboos, stereotypes, and struggles of Black actors in Brazilian television "soaps." Based on his own memories and on a sturdy body of research evidence, the director analyzes race relations in Brazilian soap operas, calling attention to their likely influence on Black people's identity-forming processes

Aleijadinho: Passion, Glory and Torment
Aleijadinho: Paixao, Gloria e Suplicio

Set in 18th century Brazil - a time when slavery was still the foundation of the Latin American economy - this fascinating historical drama is loosely based on the life of Black sculptor Antonio Francisco Lisboa "Aleijadinho," one of the greatest sculptors of Latin America.
“[DENYING BRAZIL is] a strong and significant work of intelligence."
– Phil Hall, FILM THREAT

“[Aleijadinho is an] ambitious biopic of 18th century black Brazilian sculptor/architect Antonio Francisco Lisboa (aka Aleijadinho).”
– Ronnie Scheib, VARIETY

RASTAS & MAROONS is a 2-DVD set featuring The First Rasta (Jamaica/France) a revealing documentary about Leonard Percival Howell, the man who created the Rasta Movement and Aluku Liba, Maroon Again  (French Guiana/Canada), a rare docu-drama about the Aluku or Boni, a Maroon ethnic group living mainly on the riverbank in Maripasoula, southwest French Guiana.

THE FIRST RASTA
Thirty years after Bob Marley's death, it is time to pay tribute to Leonard Percival Howell, The First Rasta. At the beginning of the last century, the young Leonard Percival Howell (1893- 1981) left Jamaica, became a sailor and traveled the world. On his way, he chanced upon all the ideas that stirred his time. From Bolshevism to New Thought, from Gandhi to Anarchism, from Garveyism to psychoanalysis, he sought to find his promised land. With this cocktail of ideas Leonard "Gong" Howell returned to Jamaica and founded Pinnacle, the first Rasta community.

Going far beyond the standard imagery of Rasta - ganja, reggae, and dreadlocks -this cultural history offers an uncensored vision of a movement with complex roots and the exceptional journey of a man who taught an enslaved people how to be proud and impose their culture on the world. In the 1920s, Leonard Percival Howell and the First Rastas had a revelation concerning the divinity of Haile Selassie, king of Ethiopia, that established the vision for the most popular mystical movement of the 20th century, Rastafarianism. Although jailed, ridiculed, and treated as insane, Howell, also known as the Gong, established a Rasta community of 4,500 members, the first agro-industrial enterprise devoted to producing marijuana. In the late 1950s the community was dispersed, disseminating Rasta teachings throughout the ghettos of the island. A young singer named Bob Marley adopted Howell's message, and through Marley's visions, reggae made its explosion in the music world.

Directed by Helene Lee, 2011, 90 min, France/Jamaica, Doc, English

ALUKU LIBA, MAROON AGAIN

Maroons are free Africans who escaped slavery in the Caribbean, Central, South and North America, and formed independent settlements.

Aluku Liba: Maroon Again is a rare docu-drama about the Aluku or Boni, a Maroon ethnic group living mainly on the riverbank in Maripasoula, southwest French Guiana.

The film follows Loeti who has spent years away from his village in French Guiana, working in extreme conditions. When the army cracks down on illegal gold mining in the Amazon forest, he is forced to flee and must use the skills he learned as a child to survive in the forest. His only hope is to find his way home to his people and reclaim his Maroon past and culture.

Directed by Nicolas Jolliet, 2009, 90 min, Canada/French Guiana/Suriname, Docu-Drama

RETURN TO GORÉE

MADE IN BANGLADESH

Shimu, 23, works in a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Faced with difficult conditions at work, she decides to start a union with her co-workers. Despite threats from the management and disapproval of her husband, Shimu is determined to go on. Together the women must fight and find a way.

By Rubaiyat Hossain, Bangladesh/France/Denmark/Portugal, 2019, 95min, social drama, English & Bengali w/English subtitles

WINNER, Public Award Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color ADIFF 2019.

SHE HAD A DREAM

She Had a Dream Trailer - ArtMattan Films from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

Ghofrane, 25, is a young Black Tunisian woman. A committed activist who speaks her mind, she embodies Tunisia’s current political upheaval. As a victim of racial discrimination, Ghofrane decides to go into politics.  In its own unique way, this documentary sheds light on the place of women and Black people in Tunisia’s changing society.

By Raja Amari, Tunisia, 2020, 90min, documentary, Arabic and French w/English subtitles.

WINNER, Public Award Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color ADIFF 2021.

Rolê - Stories of Brazilian Protests in Malls

ROSA CHUMBE

ROTATING SQUARE 

SARA GOMEZ: AN AFRO-CUBAN FILMMAKER