The Rashomon Effect

Documentary film about Tony Halme, masculinity and populism. The film follows how Tony Halme created a mythical, highly masculine freestyle wrestling character, The Viking, who gained fame both in the ring and in the public eye and eventually became captivated by it. With his brash speeches, Halme fired the starting shot for the rise of the Finns Party. The voice of a forgotten section of the population, a protest against the ruling elite, were the building blocks of Halme's popularity. Halme's great popularity has served as a good example of a populist figure, admired within the deep ranks of the nation, who comes from outside the political elite and changes the direction of politics. Also, despite - or perhaps because of - his openly racist statements, he was part of changing the political climate in Finland to a more acrimonious one.

When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their personal stories before, confront its deep and dark racist past.

THE ARYANS is Mo Asumang's personal journey into the madness of racism during which she meets German neo-Nazis, the US leading racist, the notorious Tom Metzger and Ku Klux Klan members in the alarming twilight of the Midwest. In The ARYANS Mo questions the completely wrong interpretation of "Aryanism" - a phenomenon of the tall, blond and blue-eyed master race.

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its chief rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. The film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story.

Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.

Doing really well on your school assessment tests, but still having the school recommend that you go to preparatory vocational school. Going to a club with friends and having the bouncer keep you out. Having to endure jokes from classmates. These are examples of the sort of casual racism that the children of director Karin Junger and their friends have to face. In Ik alleen in de klas, director Karin Junger, white mother of three darker-skinned children, stands with her family to confront the racism they experience in their daily lives. Twelve adolescents meet at a mansion in France. The group consists of Junger’s children and their friends. All of them come from ethnic minority backgrounds and share a feeling of being excluded from Dutch society. Re-enactment is used to explore painful situations again. In this simple but effective documentary, we can see the impact of subtle and less subtle forms of racism on the lives of young Dutch people.

On August 29, 1970 in East Los Angeles, a peaceful march of over 20,000 Chicanas/os, united in protest against the Vietnam War as part of the National Chicano Moratorium movement, was violently interrupted by an extreme, unjustifiable response by law enforcement. The tragic events of that day left four dead. Chicano Moratorium: A Question of Freedom is a harrowing, eyewitness documentary of the events of August 29, 1970 and their immediate aftermath, including the murder of Chicano journalist, Ruben Salazar. In contrast to biased TV news reports of the period, this student-made short offers an impassioned, unvarnished community account of the unrest and violence unleashed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in response to the otherwise peaceful march in protest of disproportionate Chicano casualties in the Vietnam War.

An American story. Traces the career of Joe Louis (1914-1981) within the context of American racial consciousness: his difficulty getting big fights early in his career, the pride of African-Americans in his prowess, the shift of White sentiment toward Louis as Hitler came to power, Louis's patriotism during World War II, and the hounding of Louis by the IRS for the following 15 years. In his last years, he's a casino greeter, a drug user, and the occasional object of scorn for young Turks like Muhammad Ali. Appreciative comment comes from boxing scholars, Louis's son Joe Jr., friends, and icons like Maya Angelou, Dick Gregory, and Bill Cosby.

United States, September 1st, 2016. American football player Colin Kaepernick kneels during the national anthem, protesting police brutality against black people. Part of the population regards the gesture as an unacceptable affront to the flag. Later, he loses his place on his team. Today, however, he is considered by many as a true hero.

Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, LA 92 immerses viewers in that tumultuous period through stunning and rarely seen archival footage.

Under pressure from activist groups, art is increasingly being cancelled for ideological reasons, because of 'cultural appropriation' or because of the desire for a 'safe space'. The colour and gender of the artist seem to be all-determining in this. How do you relate to this as an artist? Is this a disturbing development or a sign of emancipation? And what does it mean for freedom of expression? Director Karin Junger investigates this with Anne-Fay Kops, Ted van Lieshout, Angel-Rose Oedit Doebé, Raymi Sambo, Boris van Berkum, Marian Markelo, Stephan Sanders and Thomas Chatterton Williams.

A view of the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhist through the portrait of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, leader of anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.

Exploring how punk influenced politics in late-1970s Britain, when a group of artists united to take on the National Front, armed only with a fanzine and a love of music.

The hairstyles of four Afro-descendant people from Mexican - Senegalese families, represent the starting point to reflect, through memories that emerge from their past and present, what it is like to live in México wearing a Black Crown and the consequences that implies.

This incisive, urgent documentary examines the history of anti-Black racism in hockey, from the segregated leagues of the 19th century to today’s NHL, where Black athletes continue to struggle against bigotry.

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.

The decades-long debate surrounding reparations is fraught, mired in racial tension and the semantics of restorative justice. While the national conversation remains stalled due to legislative inaction, communities across the country examine their histories and take it upon themselves to arrange their own form of reparations. This detailed investigation of restitution presents accounts of everyday people confronting the past and exploring the possibilities of wealth transfer.

What does beauty look like? In this award-winning short, Kenyan filmmaker Ng’endo Mukii combines animation, performance, and experimental techniques to create a visually arresting and psychologically penetrating exploration of the insidious impact of Western beauty standards and media-created ideals on African women’s perceptions of themselves. From hair-straightening to skin-lightening, YELLOW FEVER unpacks the cultural and historical forces that have long made Black women uncomfortable, literally, in their own skin.

Controversy erupts over a New-Deal-era mural of the namesake of San Francisco’s George Washington High School. The thirteen-panel artwork "The Life of Washington" by Victor Arnautoff offers a view of the Founding Father both celebratory and critical, referencing his involvements in slavery and Native American genocide.

In the run-up to parliamentary elections in mid-October, Polish filmmaker Marcin Wierzchowski travelled across his country to gauge the atmosphere in a society that is more divided than ever.