Issue

Unequal States

July 2020

Stories of the continued struggle against oppression through movements, resistance, and solidarity are often documented and presented in many forms as acts of resistance themselves. In these stories, the notion of "inequality" draws together different worlds, cultures, and dimensions/scales (micro/macro). From animations to documentaries, these films shed light on the pervasiveness of this inequality on all fronts by exploring social, scientific, and political perspectives in our fight against racism, injustice, and inequality.

- Lujain Ibrahim

Nation Estate

FILM Palestine, Denmark 2012
Larissa Sansour

Courtesy of mec film Nation Estate is a 9-minute sci-fi short offering a clinically dystopian, yet humorous approach to the deadlock in the Middle East. With a mixture of computer-generated imagery, live actors and arabesque electronica, Nation Estate explores a vertical solution to Palestinian stat

No Exit

FILM Palestine 2014
Mohanad Yaqubi

Like many people of his generation, Ali has decided to run away from the hardships of war, but finds himself caught at a bus-stop between worlds.

2042

FILM Mexico 2010
Emiliano Castro Vizcarra

The Mayas predicted the unavoidable-global warming. The future of the world depends on the people returning to the basics and uniting for survival. A divine cycle of death and rebirth.

The Wind

FILM Syria 2015
Lina Ghaibeh May Ghaibeh

What does it mean to be abandoned by everything? Abandoned by your people, your country? Abandoning your home, your street, your city, your country? Abandoned by the world?

Gagarine

FILM France 2015
Fanny Liatard Jérémy Trouilh

Youri is twenty years old. He lives with his mother in Ivry, the city where he grew up. But his apartment complex is to be demolished and the scene of his childhood dreams will disappear. How will he lift off without a spaceship?

Caroni

FILM Trinidad, United States 2018
Ian Harnarine

An immigrant in New York tries to become a Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) bird, so that she can travel back to the Caribbean for her child's birthday party.

Orfeo Nel Canale Alimentare

FILM Rachel Mayeri 2018
Rachel Mayeri

Orfeo Nel Canale Alimentare (Orpheus in the Alimentary Canal) is an animated opera about the digestive tract. In the film, Orpheus attempts to rescue Eurydice from a bout of indigestion by crossing the river of her inner-under world. But in the alimentary canal there are no heroes, only the multitud

Maelstroms (2015)

FILM United States 2015
Lana Z. Caplan

Using animation, heat sensitive camera footage from US border patrol screens, military bombing drone monitors, and other collected footage, Maelstroms is a mediation on the dehumanizing use of image technology to control borders by land, air and sea.

Struggle for Existence

FILM United States 2010
Laurie Sumiye

In 2025, five rare Palila finches survive in the wild and a woman journeys to Hawaii, the Extinction Capital of the World, to see the last few birds. Through animation and live-action footage, the film explores how a species is preserved by man as it nears extinction by looking at past and present e

Lost in Words

FILM United Kingdom, Taiwan 2016
Ivyy Chen

Independent animation visualising the experience of language confusion and misunderstanding while people living in their second language

10 - 3 = 13

FILM Canada 2018
Byron Peters

Set between a children's play town that playfully delivers sincere propositions for a collective logic of political imagination. Drawing from anti-bias curricula alongside radical positions on colonial and historical debts, 10 – 3 = 13 offers a lesson on the 'misinvention' of negative numbers.

Under Construction (2007)

FILM France 2007
Zhenchen Liu

Due to Shanghai's regeneration scheme, old buildings are being demolished, and consequently almost 100 000 families are being forced to move each year. " Under Construction" explores the human implications of the Shanghai Planning Office and its Property Developers operations. Photographs are compos

The Bleaching Syndrome

FILM Qatar 2019
Eiman Mirghani

After a failed attempt to make a documentary about a Sudanese woman who bleaches her skin, filmmaker Eiman Mirghani turns the camera around to discover her own relationship with her skin color and how it has affected her life as a young, Afro-Arab woman living in the Middle East.

Exotique

FILM France 2015
Soraya Milla

Philomène, une adolescente d'origine africaine, aime Bastien. Mais avec sa tignasse crépue, elle ne pense pas détenir les armes de séduction pour concurrencer les filles aux cheveux vaporeux. Philomène décide alors de se faire un tissage, changement capillai

Et toujours nous marcherons

FILM France, Belgique 2017
Jonathan Millet

They are those whose margin is territory, those who go without being seen. They are illegal and speak thousand languages. To find those he's looking for, Simon arrives to Paris and follows in their footsteps. Discovering the depth of the invisible city, he accesses despite himself to the classical n

Binge Watching

FILM UK 2019
Nosa Igbinedion

In a dystopian near-future London, a privileged white woman browses a futuristic VR streaming platform and comes across a VR film where she will experience a tense encounter with a pair of policemen…through the eyes of a black man.

Obaida

FILM Palestine 2019
Matthew Cassel

What does it feel like to be led away from your home by a soldier, while blindfolded? What happens when a military occupation looms over an entire childhood? OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child's experience of Israeli military detention. Each year, some 700 Palestini

Wealth Inequality in America

FILM United States 2012
Politizane

Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is. References: motherjones.com/politics/2 ... danariely.com/2010/09/30/wealt ... thinkpro

A Week With Azar

FILM Iran, Slovenia, United States, Austria 2018
Tara Najd Ahmadi

A Week with Azar is a short experimental documentary film, based on a true story of Azar, an Iranian computer engineer living in the United States, who in the winter of 2017 failed to see her ill sister in Isfahan (Iran) for the last time because of the Executive Order 13769, commonly known as the t

Too Many Curves than Edges

FILM Ghana 2020
Dickson Oyiadjo

In 'Too many curves than edges' ,Jenny and JoJoo struggle accepting their body in a society where an ideal body is nothing close to theirs and almost out of reach. In an attempt to fit it, Jenny starves herself to fit in. JoJo develops a character to adapt Too many curves than edges tells the tales

Tetescha Us

FILM Austria 2008
Stefanie Wuschitz

The animated film "Tetescha Us" proceeds from a double aporia: the fact that neutral representations of the Middle East conflict raise unrealistic expectations and the impossibility of presenting them as intact narratives. The starting point is a comic workshop which filmmaker Stefanie Wuschitz orga

Today They Took My Son

FILM Lebanon 2017
Pierre Dawalibi

A mother coping with her young son being taken away by a military system. Her helplessness to prevent the cruel and inhumane treatment she knows he is experiencing is more than any mother can bear. This happens to more than 700 Palestinian children a year.