Pahokee (2019), 112 minutes, directed by Ivete Lucas

Synopsis: This powerful documentary follows four teens in an impoverished town in rural Florida as they experience the joys and heartbreaks of their last year in high school. After playing to a standing ovation in Sundance, the film has been an audience and festival favorite!

Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan paint a detailed and astonishing portrait of Pahokee, a rural village in the Everglades, Florida. Very close-knit, its inhabitants fight to face fragile financial situations and an uncertain future. Through a precise observational approach, the film captures the daily life of this city restoring a rich palette of nuances. From sporting events to beauty contests at school, filmmakers explore social and community rituals, and how gender and identity are portrayed as new stories are created. Going well beyond the teaching of Wiseman, which Lucas and Bresnan have perfectly integrated, the film seems to bathe in the singular atmosphere of a song of Gil Scott Heron, with lingering hints of rural blues tinged with urban echoes. A complex multi-faceted work that recalls both the raw social realism of the new American cinema and the neorealist style. Pahokee is the powerful portrait of a forgotten America, absent from the current political discourse.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2020), 103 minutes, directed by Justin Pembroke

Synopsis: Based on the international bestseller by rock-star economist Thomas Piketty (which sold over three million copies worldwide and landed Piketty on Time's list of most influential people), this captivating documentary is an eye-opening journey through wealth and power, a film that breaks the popular assumption that the accumulation of capital runs hand in hand with social progress, and shines a new light on today’s growing inequalities. Traveling through time, the film assembles accessible pop-culture references coupled with interviews of some of the world’s most influential experts delivering an insightful and empowering journey through the past and into our future.