Movies: Colonialism

The ruthless dictator Teodoro Obiang has ruled Equatorial Guinea with an iron hand since 1979. Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel is the most translated Equatoguinean writer, but he had to flee the country in 2011, after starting a hunger strike denouncing the ...

PsiQuis: Un Giro Decolonial is a documentary that presents and discusses the psychological impact that colonialism has had on the Puerto Rican people. The director analyzes the traumas generated in Puerto Rican society by that colonial experience....

17-year-old Giddy spends a week in England seeking reconnection with her queer and estranged sister, Julie. On the night of Julie’s 24th birthday, Giddy faces a tumultuous transition into adulthood. The sisters clash as old patterns and memories reme...

The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story tol...

Shirley has gone to Africa to civilize the cannibals; something she is able to do with the assistance of Diperzan....

An in depth look at the toxic legacy of British colonial-era laws, which criminalise consensual same-sex love, while at the same time allowing perpetrators of sexual violence to go unpunished. More than 70 countries still criminalise gay sex. In over...

Algeria, summer 1962, eight hundred thousand French people left their native land in a tragic exodus. But 200,000 of them decided to attempt the adventure of independent Algeria. Over the following decades, political developments would push many of t...

An epic war film about the battle of the Italian and Libyan armies....

A short film created (and narrated) in 1985 by Québécois director Pierre Falardeau. It compares English rule in Ghana with Canadian dominance in Quebec by showing the 200th anniversary celebration of the Beaver Club of Montreal....

"Gerboise bleue", the first French atomic test carried out on February 13, 1960 in the Algerian Sahara, is the starting point of France's nuclear power. These are powerful radioactive aerial shots carried out in areas belonging to the French army. Un...

Stories of Waitara combines oral histories, state of the art animations and powerful dramatic re-enactments to bring to life the narratives of Te Ātiawa in their epic battle against the military might of the British Empire. Created and presented by ...

An european artist writes about his experience in portraying life in Brazil during the colonial period. Aporteiro – concierge and security guard in one – watches the surveillance cameras in a residential building, while reflecting on his profession a...

Under Dorchester Square in Montreal lies the cemetery where 55,000 people were buried in the 19th century. The square is still at the heart of social conflicts in Quebec, 150 years later....

This film travels over open books, looted objects and postcards to look for the imperial foundations of the world in which we live. Within this wide landscape the film focuses on the destruction of the Jewish Muslim world that existed in North Africa...

Working from archives of private film footage from a trip to India by the upper class of the late 1920s, a period of strong anti-colonial outbreak, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi deconstruct the images and analyze the attitude and behavior...

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This portait of life on the tea plantations is decidedly rosy – clearly, there are no exploited workers here. However, the film provides an intriguing overview of tea production – from the planting of tea seeds to the final shipping of the precious l...

A five-year visual ethnography of traditional yet practical orchestration of Semana Santa in a small town where religious woodcarving is the livelihood. An experiential film on neocolonial Philippines’ interpretation of Saints and Gods through many f...

In a strange twist of irony, Americans celebrate their independence on the sovereign lands of the Quileute People. An ambient soundscape coupled with the opening shot of an adjoining RV park work in unison to reveal an alien invasion on the shores of...

Montezuma is a 2009 BBC Television documentary film in which Dan Snow examines the reign of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II....