The Hard R

The Refusal

In 1971, the Algerian government nationalized hydrocarbons. The consequences of this decision on the community of Algerians in France are numerous. The Galti family is prey to these economic problems. The father, Khaled, former member of the F.L.N. in France, does not escape the sentence. Sharazade, his wife and comrade in combat, finds herself torn between her role as wife, mother and nostalgia for a country and a bygone past. As for his son Karim, a victim of socio-cultural division, all he has left is refusal.

Betty's Blues

The story begins in the basement of a worn-out blues bar in Louisiana in the 1980s. A few regular customers are having a drink. A guitarist gets on stage and everybody comments on the newcomer. The guitarist draws the attention of the audience by tapping the microphone. He introduces himself. He will tell them the true story of Blind Boogie Jones.

Coup de Torchon

A pathetic police chief, humiliated by everyone around him, suddenly wants a clean slate in life, and resorts to drastic means to achieve it.

Concerning Violence

Based on powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, this documentary is accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

Why Do They Hate Us?

The Celebration

The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a devastating secret that turns the night into a battle of truth and denial.

La Haine

After a chaotic night of rioting in a marginal suburb of Paris, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, wander around unoccupied waiting for news about the state of health of a mutual friend who has been seriously injured when confronting the police.

9 Songs

Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall - London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.

Fareed

Fareed, a young poet of Berber origin, has a sewing workshop in his apartment in Montreal. At first, Fareed doesn’t react at the accusing finger the news media point at all Muslims. But Fareed is forced to react when a client finds herself embarrassed by a message he has left in one of the dresses.

200

Collisions

The possibly devastating impact of the Trump administration crackdown on immigration, for one Bay Area family.

Un racisme à peine voilé

October 2003, Alma and Lila Levy are excluded from the Lycée Henri Wallon in Aubervilliers solely because they were wearing a headscarf. What follows is a deafening political and media debate, justifying in most cases the exclusion of girls wearing head-scarves to school. February 2004, a law was eventually passed by the National Assembly. "A thinly veiled racism" is about this controversy since the affair of Creil in 1989 (where two schoolgirls were excluded for the same reasons) and attempts to "reveal" that maybe what hides behind is the desire to exclude these girls. This film gives them a voice as well as others - teachers, community activists, feminists, researchers - gathered around the group "A School for You-All" fighting for the repeal of this law they consider sexist and racist ... This movie was censured in Septembre 2004 in France.

Glory

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

Bound by Honor

Based on the true life experiences of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, the film focuses on half-brothers Paco and Cruz, and their bi-racial cousin Miklo. It opens in 1972, as the three are members of an East L.A. gang known as the "Vatos Locos", and the story focuses on how a violent crime and the influence of narcotics alter their lives. Miklo is incarcerated and sent to San Quentin, where he makes a "home" for himself. Cruz becomes an exceptional artist, but a heroin addiction overcomes him with tragic results. Paco becomes a cop and an enemy to his "carnal", Miklo.

Two Gentlemen Sharing

An insecure Briton and a Briton of Jamaican descent share a London apartment together.

Chinese Characters

Best known for his work in video, Richard Fung has made the politics of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation his central focus. Chinese Characters (1986) examines the ambiguous relationship of gay Asian men with white gay porn.

Good Girl Jane

Struggling to fit in in her new school and reeling from the fallout of her parent’s recent divorce, lonely LA high schooler Jane falls in with a rambunctious crowd, and becomes smitten with their charming drug supplier, Jamie.

Soy mestizo

The natural sciences museum of La Plata, Argentina, had indigenous people held captive as study objects in the past, and their skeletons were on exhibit for many decades. The story of Krygi, served as a trigger to look back at the ideologies that defined us as individuals and as a people.

It’s Nice in Here

A fragmented portrait of a moment, a person, and a place, seen through the subjective memories of a young Black girl, Imani, and a rookie police officer, David, who both have wildly different recollections of the same fateful moment in a corner store that will leave their lives altered forever.

Fatal Fix

A microcosm of people lost in search of an artificial happiness, which leads them to steal and prostitute themselves for the short ecstasy of a squirt of heroin in the veins. Marco and Pina live in this world of drugs, prostitution and violence, and they must fight for their survival. One day one of their friend dies during a holdup. Marco and Pina are helpless and will do anything to escape, but fate does not want a similar world. Between bites of heroin and sidewalk they are in a deadly trance.