After his mother’s sudden death, Socrates, a 15-year-old living on the margins of São Paulo’s coast, must survive on his own while coming to terms with his grief. Socrates was produced by a crew of 16-20-year-olds from the Querô Institute, a UNICEF-supported project that provides social inclusion through filmmaking to underrepresented youths in the Baixada Santista region of São Paulo, Brazil. Produced by Ramin Bahrani (99 HOMES) and filmed with a micro budget of under twenty thousand dollars, Socrates is the debut feature film from 29-year-old Brazilian-American director Alex Moratto. Bijan Tehrani: Could we call Socrates a social justice film?…
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Social Justice Cinema
The director of Rafiki, Wanuri Kahiu, sued the Kenyan government to lift a national censorship that rendered the film ineligible for the Academy Award’s Best Foreign Language Film accolade. Kenya’s LGBTQ community is celebrating after the Kenyan High Court temporarily lifted the ban on the queer drama Rafiki. The critically acclaimed film, based in Nairobi, navigates the romance between two women in a country where homosexuality is illegal, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. After months of protesting the strict criminalization and censorship of the film, hundreds attended its initial, celebratory screening. In April 2018, the Kenya Film Classification Board banned the…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past nine months, chances are you’re probably familiar with the films Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians. It’s equally likely that you’ve read and heard all about how these two films are transforming Hollywood and the movie industry, breaking down racial boundaries for actors and actresses, combating the hateful tides of racism, and empowering minority youths all around the world. That certainly sounds impressive, but the impact that these films have had is severely over hyped. Now don’t get me wrong: both movies were engaging and fun to watch, and they both have excellent…
In this interview with indianexpress.com, Nandita Das talks about her globally acclaimed film Manto and tells us why the writer is so relevant even today. Das also shares her thoughts on why it is important for her to own the tag of being a ‘woman director’. Q. What made you take up this biopic? I had read Manto in college, but it was only in 2012 that I started reading his essays when the centenary celebrations started and a lot more came out about him. That’s when I realized that he is so relevant today. Whether it was about identity,…
Two upcoming film festivals, one new and one established, highlight independent black filmmakers who amplify black narratives that are often untold, forgotten, or simply ignored. While Afrofuturism is widely associated with George Clinton and his Parliament-Funkadelic collective, its connection to music can be traced back to Sun Ra, an American jazz visionary, and found in today’s hip-hop and pop. The ancestral relationship of Afrofuturism and multiple genres of music is examined in Aural Futures, a new film festival at Duke University. Aural Futures started with Ingrid LaFleur, a recent Afrofuturist mayoral candidate in Detroit. Beginning September 12, the festival consists of…
The ways we watch TV and movies have evolved, and it’s time for the talent in front of and behind the camera to do the same. Film Forward speaks on the initiatives to diversify the film industry and the stories it tells. New articles premiere every second Thursday of — and throughout — the month. The importance of an open dialogue about mental health cannot be overstated, and one avenue for encouraging such a conversation is through popular culture. As a number of celebrities speak candidly about their own real-life experiences with mental health concerns, it’s also vital to represent these types of experiences honestly and…
The Green Lens Film Series returns 7 p.m. Sept. 13 to the Egyptian Theatre, 135 N. Second St., with a collection of films that address environmental and political issues. The screenings are free to the public and will take place every Thursday for five weeks, according to a news release from DeKalb Stands. https://youtu.be/6zrn4-FfbXw The first film, “Plastic Ocean,” follows journalist and director Craig Leeson, who came across an immense amount of plastic waste in the ocean while researching blue whales. He teams up with a group of international scientists and researchers to investigate plastic pollution and its effects on…
Last year, now-infamous producer Harvey Weinstein was still attending the Toronto International Film Festival. This year, making its world premiere at the festival he once frequented is “This Changes Everything,” a documentary highlighting the systemic sexism that has permeated Hollywood for the past century. In the year since a report by the New York Times alleged decades of abuse by Weinstein, he’s pled not guilty to sex-crime charges, including rape, and an array of powerful men have been similarly accused of various forms of misconduct. While it was hoped the ensuing uproar might give Hollywood a chance to shed it’s…
If you go to Brave New Films’ YouTube channel, you discover a treasure of social justice films. In this channel there are tens of films on any social justice issues that you can imagine, from universal healthcare to immigration problems, to the war in Iraq and racism and many more. You may spend months and a few hours every night to watch the informative and interesting films on Brave New Films’ YouTube channel, and never get board. Actually I have got edited to this channel. To name a few Brave New Films productions that I have watched lately I name a…
It is a proud moment for the local film fraternity that Pakistan is the focus country for the upcoming Tasveer South Asian Film Festival (TSAFF) 2018 that will commence from September 28. Now in its 13th year, it is the largest South Asian film festival in the United States. Each year, TSAFF selects a focus country that comprises at least 30 per cent of the festival programming and this year the spotlight is on Pakistan, with no entry fee for Pakistani filmmakers. The theme, #KnowMe, asks filmmakers and audience members alike to challenge narratives and assumptions about South Asia. Academy…