slavery
Nancy Kelly’s Thousand Pieces of Gold is a subtly brilliant revisionist western replete with period atmosphere and an original story.
Vitalina Varela is a visually stunning film submerged in regret, remorse, anger, and in some ways a faint light of hope.
Boxed is an example of how powerful a film about America’s darkest period can be if shot through the eyes of those who can understand the weight of what they’re portraying.
Harriet is a formulaic biopic that doesn’t take any creatively clever leaps to ensure this biopic deserves to be associated with the historical significance of Harriet Tubman.
These two award winning films illustrate how cinema can either reinforce or dismantle traditional understandings of colonialism and the Age of Exploration.
The life story of activist Nadia Murad is told in On Her Shoulders with a lack of sensationalism, focusing more on her cause than the tragedy.
A Woman Captured is a haunting insight into the life of a modern slave; we were also able to talk with filmmaker Bernadett Tuza-Ritter about her experiences making the film.
With all its success over the year and its deep political, racial and socio-economical undertones, and Oscars just around the corner, it seemed an appropriate time to dive back into the horror that is Get Out.
The Birth of a Nation is often relentlessly dark and bitter, and as a result is only partly a success at delivering its compelling message.
Ava DuVernay returns to the documentary format with 13th, a look at the amendment of the United States Constitution that simultaneously abolished slavery and established a loophole for denying rights to targeted groups. The troubling wording in the amendment has to do with convicted criminals, who are the only people exempt from the abolishment of slavery and involuntary servitude. That exemption, while small at the time, has snowballed into a huge issue thanks to America’s system of mass incarceration.
Ben-Hur actually opens with the horses getting ready to bolt from the gates for the chariot race. That will seem heretical to audiences familiar with the Academy Award winning 1959 version of the story. Younger moviegoers may not even realize this is a remake, and may not even realize that the phrase “chariot race” used to refer to a big movie’s big action climax.
There are two thoughts that go through your head when you hear about a Romanian film which won the Silver Bear for its director Radu June (at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival), and which has been earmarked as the country’s entry into the Foreign Film category at this year’s Oscars. The first is that this must be a very good film indeed. The other is that this is the sort of film that groups of people gather around and agree is an artistic and important film, but ultimately it’s not very entertaining.