Shorts Program: BEYOND THE BARRICADES

From protest as celebration to celebration as protest, anti-authoritarian resistance to the mixed legacy of political struggle, the six films in this progamme all consider issues around protest, marronage and solidarity worldwide.

Brazil Is Thee, Haiti Is (T)here
Dir.  Carlos Adriano / 17 minutes / 2020 / Brasil
On March 16, 2020, in Brasília, the capital of Brazil, an anonymous and unknown Haitian man challenged the head of the nation: “Bolsonaro, it’s over. You are not president anymore.” This film poem counterpoints that event with the catastrophic military operations held by Minustah (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti), commanded by Brazil in 2005 and 2006, in Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince. The film summons the song Haiti by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and makes references to the Haitian revolution, the poem O Guesa by Sousândrade, Bur-Jargal by Victor Hugo, the film Haiti: The Way of Liberty by Arnold Antonin, and the unrealized project by Sergei Eisenstein and Paul Robeson about Toussaint Louverture.

Content warning: This film contains material of a sensitive nature regarding violence against black bodies.

Letter From Your Far Off Country
Dir. Suneil Sanzgiri / 18 minutes / 2020 / India and United States
Drawing upon a rich repository of images —from digital renderings of Kashmir’s mountains to the textured materiality of 16mm hand-processing and direct animations techniques—Letter From Your Far-off Country maps a hidden vein of shared political commitment and diasporic creative expression, linking a poem by the Kashmiri American writer Agha Shahid Ali with interviews with the filmmaker’s father and a letter addressed to Communist Party leader Prabhakar Sanzgiri, who is also the filmmaker’s distant relative.

Fi Dem III: Ancestral Interference
Dir. Zinzi Minott / 11 minutes / 2020 / United Kingdom
Fi Dem III: Ancestral Interference, like the preceding installments of the filmmaker’s project (both previous THFF selections), invokes the HMT Empire Windrush’s mid-century voyage from Jamaica to London—except now we see it placed explicitly alongside emblems of the transatlantic slave trade. The slave ship’s hold stretches across centuries of black Caribbean history into the present, as the film turns our attention to the legacies of black Caribbean life, sound, resistance and communion within its diaspora. The film also draws from personal and familial archives to chart several black Caribbean journeys and narratives, some of which have been imaged and returned to throughout the series.

Aquí
Dir. Carlos Mario / 10 minutes / 2020 / Puerto Rico
Using recent events in Puerto Rico as its point of departure, Aquí is an intimate and rigorous exploration of political protest as an affective space.

Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical
Dir. Rhea Storr / 11 minutes / 2020 / The Bahamas and United Kingdom
In Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical, Afrofuturism is communicated via the Bahamian people through Junkanoo, a form of celebration in the Bahamas. Originally celebrated by slaves who were given three days off only, Junkanoo can be viewed as a form of resistance, celebrated on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. The film follows the Shell Saxon Superstars, who come together in spectacular fashion to enact a politically motivated theme, asserting national pride or depicting other countries. We visit the shacks where the costumes are made to observe the craftsmanship and dedication required to win the parade and obtain bragging rights. The soundtrack has many layers and is comprised mostly of samples. Like the 16mm film images, analog sounds (chiefly static and radio) are used to obscure a seemingly obtainable message.

I’m Free Now, You are Free
Dir. Ash Goh Hua / 14 minutes / 2020 / United States
When Mike Africa Jr. was born in prison, he spent just three days with his mother Debbie Africa, a formerly incarcerated political prisoner of the MOVE9, before prison guards wrenched him away. They spent the next 40 years struggling for freedom and for each other. I’m Free Now, You Are Free reflects on their reunion, and meditates on black family preservation as resistance against state violence.

Content warning: This film contains mentions of police violence.

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