Filmmaker and writer Milisuthando Bongela was born in Transkei, which was then an “independent” Black republic in South Africa. At the time, she didn’t realize that the territory’s freedom was embedded in apartheid—beyond its borders, inhabitants had to deal with harsh discrimination and inequality. In this personal and poetic documentary, Bongela explores the different worlds in which she grew up: her childhood in the former Transkei, the small coastal city of East-London in the 1990s, and post-apartheid Johannesburg.

At the same time, she recounts the history of her native country during and after apartheid. Intense music and Bongela’s voice accompany the extraordinary archive footage, as she reflects on complex issues of power, fear, intimacy, friendship, and love, and her relationship with her white friends, who struggle with intergenerational guilt.

We also see friends, family, and historical figures. Together they highlight the subtler sides of racism. Milisuthando is both an honest and poignant self-portrait and a portrayal of a torn country.

In the Chinese farming village of Wenlou, nearly sixty percent of the population is infected with HIV. This is the high price they now pay for selling blood, which was a way that the inhabitants of the Chinese countryside could eake out a paltry living in the 1990s. In this film, Shengyi Ma’s family is followed for a year, from the summer of 2001, during a period in which AIDS is already manifest in mother Leimei.

Shengyi cares for his wife and their three children—their youngest daughter and baby son are also seropositive. He’s desperately trying to make ends meet, supported by a ludicrously pitiful allowance from the government. The film is divided into seasons, the fierceness of which parallel the circumstances of the family’s life. When the sulky autumn and an endless winter are finally over, spring brings new hope.

Filmmaker Weijun Chen intermixes scenes of austere daily life with ever-saddening monologues by Shengyi Ma, and moving interviews with the children.

During the rehearsals of a theatre adaptation of Émile Zola’s book L’Assommoir, the real and fictional lives of actress and artistic director Anne and her stage character Gervaise appear to intertwine. Experimental and intimately filmed scenes provide insights into the constantly shifting parallel worlds between which Anne and Gervaise are navigating.

The fascinating play between reality and fiction leads to a constant tension: are the intimate scenes she plays with her neighbour Benoît real or part of the play? And the outbursts of anger, the arguments, and the tears? Meanwhile, serious themes are explored, such as alcohol addiction, domestic violence, the consequences of divorce, the impact of harsh Parisian life on love, and working in a male-dominated environment.

The ambiguous play within a play contributes to the realization that there may actually be no distinction between reality and fiction. This inevitably leads to the question: what role are we playing ourselves?

Q&A

After the screening, the filmmakers will join us on stage for a short Q&A with the audience.

Altijd als eerste op de hoogte van onze programmering, De Balie podcasts, Tv fragmenten en de nodige verdieping.

Justina, now in her late 50s, lives with her queer daughter Alexia in a castle-like country estate on the Pampas of Argentina. Justina inherited this property from the family for whom she worked as a housekeeper. The only condition was that she would not sell it to anyone. Inside, the cluttered but charming decor is all velvet upholstery and crystal glass. A little black lamb is left free to roam undisturbed. The paint is peeling, the walls are damp, and the drains are blocked. When a bill needs to be paid, yet another cow is sold. Only occasionally, when there’s something to be celebrated, do the descendants of the old family come and stay. Alexia has had enough of this way of life and wants to go to the city and be a car mechanic—or, even better, a race car driver.In this hybrid film—part documentary, part feature—the chief protagonists remain themselves as they re-enact events from their own lives. The result is a dreamlike parable about a mother-daughter relationship, racism, class, and decay. The jazzy 1950s-style music composed especially for the film perfectly complements the story being told.

During this screening, the films Where Am I From? and Boyz will be followed by a Q&A.

Where Am I From?

In Where Am I From? Nouf is repeatedly asked, “where are you from?” She turns to AI for an answer. She and AI talk about the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and the AI narrator analyses images to find an answer for her. A clever way of showing the limitations of our perception of the other, as well as the limitations of machine learning.

Nouf Aljowaysir – 12′ – United States, Saidi Arabia – Arabic, English

Boyz
Boyz portrays three smart, fun, popular boys as they enjoy partying, hanging out and talking about their future. They are close friends, but will soon have to part ways as student life draws to an end. This film is refreshing in how it depicts intimate male friendships in a way we rarely see, as the friends discuss vulnerabilities, insecurity about penis size and wanting the first time to be special.

Sylvian Cruiziat – 72′ – Germany – English, German

Q&A

After the screening, the filmmakers will join us on stage for a short Q&A with the audience.

Altijd als eerste op de hoogte van onze programmering, De Balie podcasts, Tv fragmenten en de nodige verdieping.

Quirino, 76, has lived all his life in the Cape Verdean ghost village of Ribeira Funda, which was deserted 40 years ago. In 1983, a man was killed by a rock that broke loose following heavy rainfall. As a result, all the villagers moved to nearby Estância de Brás—all except Quirino, that is.

Here in this deep and spectacular valley between the sea and the mighty mountains, Quirino spends his days alone, but for the company of a chicken and the radio that is his lifeline to the rest of the world. It is on this majestically shot rocky coastline that he reflects on his life and on life in general—on how brief our time is here, never knowing our destination. “Life in Cabo Verde is really hard. It doesn’t give any stability. It’s like a boat without a keel,” he says in this thoughtful and melancholy portrait.

Quirino notices that he is becoming increasingly stiff and forgetful. He faces a dilemma: should he stay or should he leave the only place he has ever known, to live out his last days elsewhere?

Q&A

After the screening, the filmmakers will join us on stage for a short Q&A with the audience.

Altijd als eerste op de hoogte van onze programmering, De Balie podcasts, Tv fragmenten en de nodige verdieping.

Through the creative use of archival material, these delicate films tap into memories of abuse, retrace personal trauma, and explore collective hope. This compilation program includes Between Delicate and Violent, Newsreel 242 – Sunny Railways and Our Special Little Secret.

After the screening the filmmakers will join us on stage for a short Q&A with the audience.

In 1968, the civil war in Nigeria was entering its second year. Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam, a young Nigerian drama student, flees to San Francisco. David Schickele wants to make a feature film about Okpokam’s experiences in his new home and casts him in the role of Gabriel. During his adventures, Gabriel encounters racism at every turn.

The motorcyclist who gives him a lift is a harbinger of the racist America that is later to be the actor’s undoing. Liberal America, represented by progressive intellectuals quoting Marshall McLuhan, also comes in for criticism. What starts as a fictional docudrama rich in subtle irony unexpectedly turns into a documentary when Okpokam is wrongly arrested during production after a strike at San Francisco State College.

“Truth was not stranger than fiction, just a little faster,” Schickele says to the camera. Schickele, originally a composer and violinist, taught English at the University of Nigeria. On his return to the US, he made Bushman, which won the Best First Feature Award at the 1971 Chicago International Film Festival. His rediscovered film has recently been restored.

With photos and videos taken by prisoners, this raw yet poetic debut film paints a rich picture of hitherto hidden life in a Chilean women’s prison. The focus is on mothers serving long sentences. They can keep their babies with them until they are two years old. Then the women lose control over who takes care of their children and whether they will be allowed to have contact with them at all.

The experiences of more than 20 mothers have been condensed into a collective memory, recounted through the voices of two women. They talk about powerlessness and longing. The prisoners themselves also give and receive affection and motherly love. The film opens with the cold rattle of a prison door and the warm sounds of a mother singing her child to sleep. A photo of a woman tenderly kissing her baby slowly emerges from the blackness.

As well as being extremely intimate and unique, the videos taken secretly with mobile phones are fragmented and imperfect. Yet, they are indispensable building blocks in telling this story.

Work hard and pay your taxes—it’s the duty of every law-abiding citizen. But this social contract is crumbling away, and now those who earn money with the least effort are also contributing the least to society. Instead, they funnel their capital into tax havens, empty oilfields at bargain prices, and wield their political power to earn yet more money.

In this sometimes sad, sometimes hopeful film, Fredrik Gertten (Push, Bikes vs Cars) takes stock of a decaying system to show that while corruption and social inequality are a growing problem worldwide, there are still plenty of people who want to reverse this trend. Scenes of activists in multiple countries living their everyday lives talk about what made them decide to resist, and what opposition they face.

These scenes alternate with reflections from Dutch historian Rutger Bregman (author of the bestseller Humankind: A Hopeful History) and US author Sarah Chayes, as they reflect on the question of whether global corruption will prevail or whether honesty and fairness will ultimately emerge victorious.