100% ARABICA + ROTATING SQUARE

$245.00

100% ARABICA

DIRECTED BY MAHMOUD ZEMMOURI

FRANCE and ALGERIA / 1997 / FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 90 MIN

SYNOPSIS

In a housing project located on the outskirts of Paris renamed "100% Arabica" by its inhabitants, African immigrants live side by side. The residents are united by their struggle for recognition in a society where immigrants are often regarded as second class citizens. In a world of exiles, poverty is the common denominator. Against this backdrop, director Zemmouri has brought together two of the biggest and most charismatic stars of the cross-cultural musical form known as Rai, Cheb Mami and Khaled, who play the leaders of a band called Rap Oriental. As the band of musicians starts to gain in popularity, the Imam of the local mosque (Mouss) tries to destroy them by stirring up racial and cultural tensions. However, no one can stop the infectious popularity of the songs in this story of music triumphing over bigotry and violence.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Mahmoud Zemmouri

Starring: Cheb Mami

Starring: Khaled

Starring: Mouss

GENRES

BONUS

ROTATING SQUARE

DIRECTED BY AHMED HASSOUNA

EGYPT / 2002 / ARABIC WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 14 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Sami and his wife Sarah are packing to move to the USA where they intend to open a restaurant. Rania, Sarah's sister, goes to their house to take them to the airport, but some unexpected and unforeseeable events take place in the apartment: games of seduction, murder and dead bodies to be disposed of. A surrealist comedy by Ahmed Hassouna who belongs to a new group of young promising Egyptian filmmakers.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Ahmed Hassouna

Starring: Rasha Mahdy

Starring: Bassem Samra

GENRES

Surrealist Comedy
DVD also includes film 100% Arabica

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THE GLASS CEILING (LE PLAFOND DE VERRE)

$195.00

THE GLASS CEILING (LE PLAFOND DE VERRE)

DIRECTED BY YAMINA BENGUIGUI

FRANCE / 2004 / FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 90 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Europe's racial make-up is quickly changing. French-Algerian filmmaker Yamina Benguigui is hoping to start a conversation about affirmative action - a policy that does not exist in France today. Benguigui's Le Plafond de Verre (Glass Ceiling) presents a series of sometimes very emotional first-hand accounts of discrimination against mostly black and North African Arab who are trying to find jobs. The documentary offers poignant and revealing accounts of discrimination faced by these full-fledged French citizens who are also children of immigrant parents.

"Now that I am out there looking for work, I cannot forget that I am not French like other French people."
— Nesrine Yahia

"Politicians in France are mostly horrified to even think about such policies ( implementing an American-style affirmative action program with quotas) because they go against what are called the values of the republic. I think that unless there is pressure from the ground up, politics in France will never change."
— Yamina Benguigui

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Yamina Benguigui

GENRES

Documentary

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OTOMO

$245.00

OTOMO

DIRECTED BY FRIEDER SCHLAICH

GERMANY / 1999 / GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 84 MIN

SYNOPSIS

A powerful film portraying institutionalized racism and police brutality, Otomo provides a convincing look at the everyday world of refugees, who are continuously surrounded by tension and insecurity. In the summer of 1989, a Stuttgart newspaper reported the true story of a West African asylum seeker who physically assaulted an intolerant subway ticket-taker; fled, and became the target of a city-wide manhunt. Otomo is a sober, fictionalized reconstruction of a tale that shocked Stuttgart, and a gripping portrait of how institutionalized racism drives a disempowered individual to violence and inhumanity.

West African immigrant Frederic Otomo (Isaach de Bankole) lacks the proper papers to be hired for the most menial of jobs; he has survived for eight years with the help of a Catholic charity. Otomo is the target of verbal abuse, is thrown out of his boarding house, and even scorned by neighborhood dogs. He feels and looks out of place. A stoic bubbling pot of wrath on the run, de Bankole's performance establishes Otomo's essence without words-language cannot express the gravity of his situation. As a ticking soundtrack counts down his fated minutes, Otomo is helped by a kind, aging hippie and her granddaughter, establishing the potential for an inclusive German society….if it is not too late...

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Frieder Schlaich

Starring: Isaach de Bankole

Starring: Eva Mattes

Starring: Barnaby Metschurat

GENRE

Drama

Waalo Fendo: Where the Earth Freezes

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PAPA'S SONG

$195.00

PAPA'S SONG

DIRECTED BY SANDER FRANCKEN

CURAÇAO AND THE NETHERLANDS / 1999 / PAPAMIENTO AND DUTCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 95 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Papa's song is a drama of domestic tension and cross-cultural misunderstanding. Nico Verema (Rene van Asten), a decorous, somewhat gloomy Dutch magistrate, lives happily with his wife, Shirley (Roman Vrede), who is from Curacao. Shirley's two young nephews, in the Netherlands to escape a bad situation at home, complete the household.

Its atmosphere of calm bourgeois propriety is soon upended by the arrival of the boys' mother, Magda (Lisette Merenciana). Shirley and Magda relationship is very stormy: they careen from screaming recrimination to tearful tenderness. Nico tries to mediate and soothe, but when Shirley, who cannot bear children, demands that he impregnate her sister, the good judge finds himself entangled in an intergenerational, trans-Atlantic web of family dysfunction.

"Papa's Song" touches on a number of fascinating and difficult themes, including the state of race relations in the contemporary Netherlands. A. O. Scott, NY Times.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Sander Francken

Starring: Romana Vrede

Starring: René Asten

Starring: Lisette Merenciana

GENRES

Romantic thriller

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JOSEPHINE BAKER: BLACK DIVA IN A WHITE MAN'S WORLD

$245.00

Josephine Baker: Black Diva in a White Man's World Trailer - ArtMattan Films from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

JOSEPHINE BAKER: BLACK DIVA IN A WHITE MAN'S WORLD

DIRECTED BY ANNETTE VON WANGENHEIM

GERMANY, U.S. AND FRANCE / 2006 / ENGLISH, GERMAN, AND FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 45 MIN

SYNOPSIS

A tender, revealing documentary about one of the most famous and popular performing artists of the 20th century. Her legendary banana belt dance created theatre history; her song “J’ai deux amours” became a classic, and her hymn.

The film focuses on her life and work from a perspective that analyses images of Black people in popular culture. It portrays the artist in the mirror of European colonial clichés and presents her as a resistance fighter, an ambulance driver during WWII, and an outspoken activist against racial discrimination involved in the worldwide Black Consciousness movement of the 20th century.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Annette von Wangenheim

GENRES

Documentary

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FOREIGN BODY (CORPS ETRANGER)

$395.00

FOREIGN BODY

DIRECTED BY RAJA AMARI

TUNISIA AND FRANCE / 2016 / ARABIC AND FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 92 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Seeking refuge from her Islamist radical brother whom she informed on, a young woman arrives in France illegally following Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution and discovers a new world of both hope and danger, in the fourth feature from writer-director Raja Amari (Satin Rouge, Buried Secrets).

In the turbulent aftermath of the Tunisian revolution, young Samia (Sarra Hannachi) flees her homeland. She braves hostile seas in the crossing to France, but once there she finds that her struggles have only just begun. With no friends, no family, and - most crucially - no immigration papers, Samia has to figure out how to make a life and a living in a foreign land.

She meets a young man, Imed (Salim Kechiouche, Blue is the Warmest Color), and soon finds work in the employ of the elegant Leila (the inimitable Hiam Abbass, subject of an In Conversation With event at the Festival this year). But her presence in Leila's middle-class household triggers a shift in its dynamics, and soon Samia is enmeshed in a web of sexual tension.

Timely as it is, Foreign Body seems to typify a media narrative of forced mass migration: desperate, distressing, impossible. The film transcends this sweeping, reductive thinking due to the way director Raja Amari immerses her camera in Samia's new reality. She shoots with a close, handheld aesthetic that makes abstraction and generalization all but impossible, bringing us the story of a unique young woman.

Hannachi portrays her character's inner turmoil brilliantly. Samia is sometimes ragged and sometimes refined, ranging from stoic to sensual, but this is not because she's unstable. Rather, it's because of her ability to change in response to different situations and environments - an ability born of necessity. This is a woman determined to survive at all costs.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Raja Amari

Starring: Sarra Hannachi

Starring: Salim Kechiouche

Starring: Hiam Abbass

GENRES

Drama

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PARIS NOIR: AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS

$295.00

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

DIRECTED BY JOANNE BURKE

U.S.A. AND FRANCE / 2017 / ENGLISH / 60 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Paris Noir - African Americans in the City of Light is an exciting, enlightening documentary on the presence of African Americans in Paris from WWI to the early 1960s.

The film touches on:

- Josephine Baker, Bricktop and Sidney Bechet
- Writers Langston Hughes and Claude McKay
- The connections forged with top African and Caribbean writers and intellectuals Leopold Senghor, Aimé Cesaire, and the Nardal Sisters
- The achievements and challenges of artists in Montparnasse
- The exploitation and growing self-determination of people of color from and in France's vast overseas empire

Looking back today at their astounding achievements and the beneficial cultural exchange between France and Black America stirs up lively conversation. These jazz musicians, writers, artists, intellectuals - they launched the appreciation of Black culture worldwide.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Joanne Burke

GENRES

Documentary

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SEXY MONEY

$295.00

SEXY MONEY

DIRECTED BY KARIN JUNGER

NIGERIA AND THE NETHERLANDS / 2014 / ENGLISH / 85 MIN

SYNOPSIS

A reflection of the difficult social conditions of women in many societies in different parts of the world, SEXY MONEY explores frontally with much sensitivity and compassion the broken hopes and hard choices of poor Nigerian women as they struggle to reintegrate Nigerian society with dignity after being expelled from Europe where they were looking for a better life.

SEXY MONEY presents a subtle indictment of the social reality of poor women in contemporary Nigeria. In recent years, a growing number of Nigerian women, among other West African women, have settled in the suburbs of major cities in the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. The women go there in order to escape poverty. But for most of them, the European adventure is a disappointment that ends when they fly back to their native countries empty-handed.

The film listens to these women talk about their European adventure and follows the development of two women in particular who, after returning to Nigeria, try to build a new life. There are countless obstacles. The film exposes the challenges these women face while celebrating their resilience.

Music, as a source of pleasure and beauty plays an important role in the lives of these women and also in the film, with songs especially composed for it by Nneka, one of Nigeria’s best.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Karin Junger

Starring: Nneka

Starring: Laura Akuoyibo

Starring: Janet Ogheneovo

GENRES

Documentary

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THE CITIZEN (AZ ALLAMPOLGAR)

$395.00

THE CITIZEN

Directed by Roland Vranik | Hungary | 2016 | Drama | 109 min

SYNOPSIS

In his late fifties Wilson, whose family was killed during an outbreak of civil war in Guinea-Bissau, enters Europe as a political refugee and settles for a sedate life as a security guard in a Budapest shopping center. Wilson's main desire is to acquire Hungarian citizenship. The story follows Wilson as he attempts to find his place in Hungarian society in his daily life, at work, with Mari, a history teacher who helps him study for the citizenship and Shirin, a young Iranian woman whose only hope to avoid deportation is to marry a Hungarian citizen. The Citizen is an Award-winning drama that poignantly dwells on some of the most complex issues of contemporary modern European society.BBC

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Rolad Vranik

GENRES

Drama

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TAZZEKA

$395.00

TAZZEKA

DIRECTED BY JEAN-PHILIPPE GAUD

FRANCE and MOROCCO / 2018 / FRENCH, ARABIC WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 95 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Growing up in the Moroccan village of Tazzeka, Elias learned the secrets of traditional Moroccan cuisine from his grandmother who raised him. Years later, meeting a top Paris chef and a young woman named Salma inspires him to leave home.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Jean-Philippe Gaud

Starring: Madi Belem

Starring: Ouidad Elma

Starring: Olivier Sitruk

GENRES

Comedy/Drama
Immigrant Experience
French Language
Staff Favorites
New Release

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THE INVISIBLE COLOR: BLACK CUBANS IN MIAMI

$295.00

THE INVISIBLE COLOR: BLACK CUBANS IN MIAMI

DIRECTED BY SERGIO GIRAL

USA / 2017 / ENGLISH AND SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 47 MIN

SYNOPSIS

This latest documentary by the Dean of Afro-Cuban Cinema Sergio Giral investigates the black Cuban exile community in South Florida, since the first wave of political refugees in the 1959 revolutionary aftermath, to today. It tracks its presence throughout the region, and highlights its contribution to Miami's civic culture through testimonies and visual documentation.

DIRECTOR

Director: Sergio Giral

GENRE

Documentary

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THE LAST TREE

$395.00

THE LAST TREE

Femi, a British boy of Nigerian descent who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire with his white fostermother, 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.

" Thoughtfully alternates universal adolescent insecurities with urgently specific minority politics - filtered through a first-person perspective that itself oscillates between furious clarity and vivid confusion." ~ Variety

* WORLD DRAMATIC COMPETITION - SUNDANCE 2019

* WINNER - British Independent Film Awards 2019
- Best Supporting Actress: Ruthxjiah Bellenea
- Most Promising Newcomer: Sam Adewunmi

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NAOMI'S JOURNEY (Naomis Reise)

$345.00

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

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NAMES LIVE NOWHERE

$195.00

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

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KAFE NEGRO: CUBA & THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

$395.00

Kafe Negro Trailer from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

Kafe Negro: Cuba & The Haitian Revolution is a film that explores the social, economic & historical ramification of the Haitian Revolution on Cuba.

Kafe Negro tells the story of migrations around a small grain that became the second most important raw material on the global market. This film tells the story of the waves of migration of Haitian workers who, over time, profoundly transformed the culture and demographics of Cuba and developed coffee growing on the island.

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THE STORY OF LOVER'S ROCK

$295.00

The Story of Lovers Rock Trailer - ArtMattan Films from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

DIRECTED BY MENELIK SHABAZZ

U.K. AND BARBADOS / 2011 / ENGLISH / 96 MIN

Lovers Rock, often dubbed 'romantic reggae' is a uniquely black British sound that developed in the late 70s and 80s against a backdrop of riots, racial tension and sound systems. Live performance, comedy sketches, dance, interviews and archive shed light on the music and the generation that embraced it. Lovers Rock allowed young people to experience intimacy and healing through dance- known as 'scrubbing'- at parties and clubs. This dance provided a coping mechanism for what was happening on the streets. Lovers Rock developed into a successful sound with national UK hits and was influential to British bands (Police, Culture Club, UB40) These influences underline the impact the music was making in bridging the multi-cultural gap that polarized the times. The film sheds light on a forgotten period of British music, social and political history.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Menelik Shabazz

Starring: Dennis Bovell

Starring: Paulette Harris-German

Starring: Janet Kay

GENRES

Musical Documentary

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RACE AND IMMIGRATION IN EUROPE

$295.00

RACE AND IMMIGRATION IN EUROPE with BORDERS andTHE GLASS CEILING

Two films connecting Africa and Europe: Borders about the life of those Africans trying to slip illegally into Europe in search of a better life and The Glass Ceiling depicting stories of some of the challenges faced by European born children of African immigrants.

BORDERS

The story of Six men and a woman set out on the hazardous journey from Senegal to Morocco in a bid to slip illegally into Europe to escape from the poverty and internecine warfare of Africa. All are lured by the promise of a better life, but the challenges are numerous.
France/Algeria, 2002, 102 min, Drama, French with English subtitles, Mostefa Djadjam, dir.

THE GLASS CEILING

Europe’s racial make-up is quickly changing. French-Algerian filmmaker Yamina Benguigui is hoping to start a conversation about affirmative action - a policy that does not exist in France today. Benguigui’s Le Plafond de Verre / The Glass Ceiling presents a series of sometimes very emotional first-hand accounts of discrimination against mostly black and North African Arab who are trying to find jobs. The documentary offers poignant and revealing accounts of discrimination faced by these full-fledged French citizens who are also children of immigrant parents.
France, 2004, 90 min, documentary, French with English subtitles, Yamina Benguigui, dir.

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THE PIROGUE

$295.00

The Pirogue trailer - ArtMattan Films from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

THE PIROGUE

DIRECTED BY MOUSSA TOURÉ

SENEGAL, FRANCE AND GERMANY / 2012 / WOLOF AND FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 87 MIN

SYNOPSIS

In Moussa Toure’s powerful epic fiction film, a group of 30 men sail to Europe in a pirogue, facing the sea - and the possibility of never reaching their destination - in exchange for the myth of a better life in Europe.

Baye Laye is the captain of a fishing pirogue. Like many of his Senegalese compatriots, he sometimes dreams of new horizons, where he can earn a better living for his family. When he is offered to lead one of the many pirogues that head towards Europe via the Canary Island, he reluctantly accepts the job, knowing full-well the dangers that lie ahead. Leading a group of 30 men who don't all speak the same language, some of whom have never seen the sea, Baye Laye will confront many perils in order to reach the distant coasts of Europe.

"Senegal, a West African nation on the Atlantic Ocean, was home to Africa’s greatest movie-maker, Ousmane Sembene. Today, Moussa Toure follows in the master’s footsteps with this drama of 30 men (and one woman, a stowaway) who set out on an illegal 7-day voyage to Spain - making the perilous trip in a pirogue - a boat resembling a vastly oversized dinghy. While sharing a common desire to build a better future, these men hail from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. The story grows from a finely delineated mosaic of personalities - reactions to the journey’s mounting danger - that span the emotional panoply of human experience. Toure’s compelling tale says as much about the universal nature of courage and perfidy as it does about the economic realities faced by so many of the world’s people. THE PIROGUE was featured in Cannes 2012, in the Un Certain Regard section." ~ Film Forum.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Moussa Touré

Starring: Souleymane Seye Ndiaye

Starring: Laïty Fall

Starring: Malaminé 'Yalenguen' Dramé

GENRES

Drama

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NIGHT OF DESTINY

$295.00

NIGHT OF DESTINY

DIRECTED BY ABDELKRIM BAHLOUL

ALGERIA AND FRANCE / 1997 / FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 96 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Sixty five years old Abdelkader Silimani, an Algerian Muslin living in France, after inadvertently witnessing a murder, closely escapes from the murderers by hiding out into a mosque. The black leather dressed masked murderers, with their firearms in hand, do not hesitate to enter the mosque full of praying men looking for the eyewitness. They leave empty handed but determined not to give up their search.

Detective Leclerc is assigned to the case. As he searches for the eyewitness who stays mute with fear, the detective slowly discovers the Northern Paris Muslim community and its traditions. For the first time, the French detective is exposed to the contradictions and challenges minority communities face as they struggle to live in a new culture with a different set of values and religious beliefs.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Abdelkrim Bahloul

Starring: Philippe Volter

Starring: Boris Terral

Starring: Gamil Ratib

GENRES

Thriller

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BLACK DJU

$195.00

BLACK DJU

DIRECTED BY POL CRUCHTEN

CAPE VERDE AND LUXEMBOURG / 1997 / PORTUGUESE & FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES / 80 MIN

"Black Dju" de Pol Cruchten - Extrait from Samsa Film on Vimeo.

SYNOPSIS

From the sea and sun of the Cape Verde Island, it's a very big step to rainy, gloomy, land-locked Luxembourg, but that's the journey 20-year-old Dju Dele Dibonga must take to track down his dad, whose yearly visits and monthly guest worker checks have stopped. But it's not just the weather that's not welcoming, Dju also has to face overzealous immigration cops intent on filling deportation quotas and the noisy outrage of a hard-boozing police lieutenant (veteran actor Philippe Léotard). Dad's trail looks cold, until lieutenant decides to join in the hunt and to become Dju's partner in this tale of love and friendship. With the exceptional participation of Cape Verdian singer Cesaria Evora as Dju's mother and Manu Dibango as himself.

DIRECTOR AND CAST

Director: Pol Cruchten

Starring: Philippe Leotard

Starring: Richard Courcet

Starring: Patrice-Flora Praxo

GENRES

Drama

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AFRICAN STORYTELLERS

$395.00

Two African Griots connect Africa and the World: Youssou N’Dour in Return to Gorée by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud, Sotigui Kouyaté in Names Live Nowhere by Dominique Loreau. DVD also includes Youssou N’Dour’s live concert performance on Gorée Island.

RETURN TO GOREE Film and Concert

RETURN TO GOREE follows Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour's historical journey tracing the trail left by enslaved Africans and the jazz music they invented. Youssou N'Dour's challenge is to bring back to Africa a jazz repertoire of his own songs to perform a concert in Goree, the island that today symbolizes the slave trade and stands to honor its victims. With Youssou N'Dour, Moncef Genoud, Joseph Ndiaye, Idris Muhammad, and Amiri Baraka among others.

DVD includes filmed final concert on the Goree Island.

RETURN TO GOREE / CONCERT, Pierre Yves Borgeaud, Senegal/Switzerland/
Luxembourg, 2006, 108 min. / 52min. In English and French with English subtitles.

NAMES LIVE NOWHERE

NAMES LIVE NOWHERE (Les Noms N'Habitent Nulle Part) - 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.

NAMES LIVE NOWHERE, Dominique Loreau, Belgium, 1994 , 76min. In French with English subtitles.

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AS FAR AS I CAN WALK

$445.00

As Far as I Can Walk Trailer - Art from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

As Far as I Can Walk is a 2021 internationally co-produced drama directed by Serbian Oscar-nominated director (for his 2003 short film '(A)Torsion') Stefan Arsenijevic that follows a couple who left Ghana with a dream of a better life in Europe and now live as refugees in Belgrade.

22-year-old Siisi, nicknamed Strahinja, is doing everything to integrate in Serbia. He volunteers for the Red Cross in the camp where he lives, looks for work, plays on the local football team... His biggest challenge, however, is to win back the woman he loves. When she disappears one day, Strahinja sets out to find her.

As Far as I Can Walk is a re-imagining of a traditional medieval epic in which contemporary African migrants take the place of Serbian national heroes. Urgent and timeless at the same time, the adaptation raises questions about identity, tradition, race and love.

It premiered at the 55th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2021 where it won five prizes including the main Grand Prix – Crystal Globe and the Best Actor honor awarded to Ibrahim Koma for his starring performance in the film.

By Strahinja Banović / Serbia / France / Luxembourg / Bulgaria / Lithuania / 2021 / 92 min / English and Serbian with English Sub.

“It’s a surprising and exhilarating blend of contemporary refugee story, love triangle and medieval Serbian poem.” ~ Alisa Simon, Variety

“In his masterfully directed picture Stefan Arsenijević delivers a crystal clear, humanistic account of the need to find one’s place in the world; this is also a tale of love, the most profound testimony of which might also be the most painful.” ~ Lenka Tyrpáková, Karlovy Vary FF

“Arsenijević's film is vividly crafted and performed. The predominantly English-language film should gather interest [ ] on the strength of its topicality and emotional accessibility.” ~ Guy Lodge, Variety

“The refugees are presented as broken and poor, but dignified, and as opposed to many other similarly themed films, we get real, flesh-and-blood characters in Strahinja and Ababuo, with well-defined personalities, pasts and hopes for the future. And therein lies the film's greatest strength: both actors are positively magnetic on the screen, but especially Koma, whose drive and extraordinary charisma often collide with Mensah-Offei's pride and headstrong ambition.” ~ Vladan Petkovic, Cineuropa

“One of Arsenijevic’s avowed goals with As Far as I Can Walk was to portray refugees as distinct individuals with inner lives, dreams and aspirations, not just blank statistics. In this he is admirably successful.” ~ Stephen Dalton, Verdict

ABOUT THE MAKING OF THE FILM

“Arsenijević’s hometown Belgrade marks an important point on the Balkan migrant route. A few years ago, he could see thousands of new refugees arriving every day. He says, “Having my own experience of war and poverty in the 90s, I could easily identify. I started talking with migrants, hearing their experiences. There was this moving story of epic proportions happening right in front of me. It was just important to find the right angle to tell it.” As the migrant crisis grew, many locals promulgated paranoid fears that migrants would take over European culture by imposing their own. “National identity and national heritage are touchy subjects in my country,” says Arsenijević. “So, it occurred to me: what if I replace Serbian national heroes with contemporary African migrants? I thought this could provide some interesting perspectives.” ~ Alisa Simon, Variety

WATCH AS FAR AS I CAN WALK IN THEATRES

THEATRE	CITY/STATE	OPENS
IFC Center	New York, NY	June 30, 2023

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AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS IN EUROPE: OTOMO & WAALO FENDO

$395.00

OTOMO

A powerful film portraying institutionalized racism and police brutality, Otomo provides a convincing look at the everyday world of refugees, who are continuously surrounded by tension and insecurity.

In the summer of 1989, a Stuttgart newspaper reported the true story of a West African asylum seeker who physically assaulted an intolerant subway ticket-taker; fled, and became the target of a city-wide manhunt. Otomo is a sober, fictionalized reconstruction of a tale that shocked Stuttgart, and a gripping portrait of how institutionalized racism drives a disempowered individual to violence and inhumanity.

West African immigrant Frederic Otomo (Isaach de Bankole) lacks the proper papers to be hired for the most menial of jobs; he has survived for eight years with the help of a Catholic charity. Otomo is the target of verbal abuse, is thrown out of his boarding house, and even scorned by neighborhood dogs. He feels and looks out of place. A stoic bubbling pot of wrath on the run, de Bankole's performance establishes Otomo's essence without words-language cannot express the gravity of his situation. As a ticking soundtrack counts down his fated minutes, Otomo is helped by a kind, aging hippie and her granddaughter, establishing the potential for an inclusive German society….if it is not too late...

"I was impressed by the decision to make Otomo a bit of an anti-hero, seeming aware that in desperate times, good people may say or do things outside the norm." -- Greg Dean Schmitz, Greg's previews at Yahoo!Movies

"Documents the institutionalized racism and xenophobia that painted one man into a corner, while never excusing the terrible means by which he took his final escape." -- Jessica Winter, Village Voice

"Much of the sense of size in this account of an immigrant worker, who is only one among many thousands in Germany, comes from the performance by Isaach de Bankole." -- Stanley Kauffmann, New Republic

WAALO FENDO: WHERE THE EARTH FREEZES
Senegal / Switzerland, 1998, 65 mins, drama in Wolof and Italian with English subtitles, Mohammed Soudani, dir.

Milan, like Paris or Stuttgart, and like many other European cities, is the theater of the drama of immigration. Demba reconstructs his story and that of his brother Yaro, both Senegalese immigrants in Italy, in a long and fragmentary flashback that begins with Yaro’s murder and recounts their departure from the village, arrival in Europe, the work they find selling lighters and picking tomatoes in the south of Italy: the stages every “non-EEC citizen” goes through in Italy. It is a story of immigration like so many others but that most people are unaware of. Waalo Fendo illustrates the dehumanization faced by so many immigrants all over the world.

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ANGELS ON DIAMOND STREET

$395.00

Angels On Diamond Street Trailer - Art HD from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

ANGELS ON DIAMOND STREET

DIRECTED BY Petr Lom

U.S.A. / Netherlands / 2019 / ENGLISH / SPANISH w/English Subtitles / 88 MIN

SYNOPSIS

Angels on Diamond Street spotlights three women fighting for social justice in an African-American church in Philadelphia. We follow head cook Mamie Mather, former Black Panther Barbara Easley-Cox and Pastor Renee Mackenzie at the soup kitchen of the Church of the Advocate: a national monument with a rich history in the civil rights movement.

When an undocumented Mexican immigrant family - Carmela Apolonio Hernandez and her children - asks the church for sanctuary, they are welcome with open arms. Pastor Mackenzie courageously defies the ICE immigration authorities in an act of civil disobedience.

A documentary about compassion that invites us to forget about all borders, be they of race, nationality or religion.

"Angels on Diamond Street, by the Netherlands-based director Petr Lom, is rich with quotable quotes. It is a tender look at an American church with an old, persevering, social justice soul, and the people who make their soup kitchen a communal magnet.

The film was recorded during a two-year focus on North Philadelphia's activist congregation of the Church of the Advocate in the heart of a poor, African American neighborhood. The church building is a huge, stone beauty finished in 1887, named the George W. South Memorial Church, but is best known by its current moniker. Informative and strung together chronologically, it grows into an occasional conversation between the man behind the camera and the people he follows. You can read a lot in its details." ~ JoAnne Velin, moderntimes.review.com

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