Schedule:

March 29, 2024

6:00 - 8:00 PM - Looking for Life

Chercher la Vie ("Looking tor Life") introduces the viewer to two women, Anne-Rose and Rosemène, who each have their own particular way of battling through life. The former makes lunches in a factory yard in Port-au-Prince and sells her meals to the factory workers; the latter is employed in the same factory as a production worker making pullovers and T-shirts.

Every day she buys her midday meal on credit from Anne-Rose. Through the connection between these two women the film reveals part of their daily work and the constant battle for survival that they lead together with other women in Haiti.

7:30 - 9:30 PM - 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.

March 30, 2024

1:00 - 3:00 PM - Zara Yacoub: A Militant Filmmaker - Childhood Destroyed & The Feminine Dilemma

Childhood Destroyed

Eleven year old Mariam works as a domestic to provide for her guardian, her unemployed Uncle Djimet, and his family. Mariam wakes up early each day to go to work while Djimet, his wife Isabelle and their children are still asleep. Mariam works as an all-purpose maid, housekeeper, cook and baby sitter for the Nadji family. With her many tasks, she is constantly under pressure from Nadji and his son Moussa, and must answer to the whims of his wife, and young children. One day, Mariam is arrested for having unwittingly thrown rubbish in a prohibited place. She is detained for five days in prison without her uncle or employer even inquiring of her whereabouts. "Childhood destroyed" denounces the living conditions of young girls in Chad in a delicate yet powerful way.

2:30 - 4:00 PM - 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.

4:40 - 6:15 PM - Loimata, the Sweetest Tears

With Ema diagnosed with terminal cancer, the Siope family searches for healing by confronting intergenerational trauma head on and returning to their homeland of S?moa.

The redemptive tale of waka builder and captain Lilo Ema Siope’s final years, the stunning LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears is a chronicle of journeys. Confronting intergenerational trauma head on, the Siope family returns to their homeland of S?moa. For Ema’s father, this is his first time back to his birthplace since leaving in 1959. The result is a poignant yet tender story of a family’s unconditional love for each other, and a commitment to becoming whole again.

6:30 - 8:00 PM - Rediet's Coming Home - NY Premiere
A tear-jerking documentary that follows 18-year-old Rediet Adane back to her birth country of Ethiopia for the first time since she was adopted from an orphanage at age 5. Having lost everything, including her birth parents, native language and culture, she now returns to her homeland as a virtual foreigner hoping to reconnect with her past, rediscover her rich heritage, and reunite with her living relatives. This intimately shot video diary centers around the importance of family, community, culture and identity.

8:30 - 10:00 PM - The Survival of Kindness
In a cage on a trailer in the middle of the desert, BlackWoman (Mwajemi Hussein) is abandoned, left to die. But BlackWoman seems not ready. She escapes, journeying through pestilence and persecution, from desert to mountain and finally to city, on a quest for an unknown beginning. But the city is more uncertain even than the desert, and recaptured, BlackWoman must find another escape.

March 31, 2024

12:00 - 3:30 PM - Raja Amari - A Feminist Filmmaker: She Had a Dream & Foreign Body

12:00 - 2:00 PM - She Had a Dream

25-year-old Ghofrane dreams of becoming a politician and having an influence on the future of Tunisia. As a young black woman from the working class, it is a dream that requires stamina – and she has plenty of it.

Raja Amari’s film follows her up to the election in 2019 when she is on the streets to gather votes and give especially young people renewed faith in democracy in a polarized society plagued by racism and inequality.

A smaller film might turn a blind eye on realism in favor of a good story, but here both Ghofrane nor Amari are aware of the exhausting struggles that have to be overcome before she can bring about the change she so fervently longs to see happening. An inspiring film about a true idealist and a rich image of a society full of contrasts.

2:00 - 3:30 PMForeign Body

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.

4:00 - 5:30 PM - All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

A decades-spanning exploration of a woman's life in Mississippi and an ode to the generations of people, places, and ineffable moments that shape us.

"I seldom know how I feel about a movie until I have seen the ending. Twenty minutes into “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” I knew that I was watching a contemporary classic.  Raven Jackson’s striking debut feature film is a tribute to Black life in the rural South. The movie takes place in Mississippi and depicts the life of Mackenzie (Charleen McClure) as she ages from childhood to adulthood. Through extensive use of sparse dialogue, elaborate soundscapes and lingering close-ups, the non-linear storyline unfolds as if the viewer is turning the pages of a well-worn family album. The film suggests that there are childhood moments that irrevocably change us, but we are only privy to when those moments occurred in hindsight."

6:00 - 7:30 PM - Africa, USA + How To Sue The Klan

Africa, U.S.A. follows Naomi, a young 25-year-old discovering herself, as she explores Igbos Landing, an area where Igbo descendants decided to rebel; Oyotunji Kingdom- a real Yoruba Village in South Carolina; and, Africatown located in Mobile, Alabama which was founded by the last enslaved Africans illegally brought to the United States.

She finds a piece of Africa in the United States and discovers black stories, cultures, and legends rich with empowerment —ultimately finding pieces of herself and her African identity in the United States.

How to Sue the Klan is the story of how Five Black women from Chattanooga used legal ingenuity to take on the Ku Klux Klan in a historic 1982 civil case, fighting to hold them accountable for their crimes and bring justice to their community. Their victory set a legal precedent that continues to inspire the ongoing fight against organized hate.

Date: March 29 - 31, 2024

Location:

Teachers College, Columbia University -

525 West 120th Street

New York, NY 10027

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