Programmed September 2024

Directed by Julius-Amédée Laou

Simmering with outrage and biting irony, the slashingly subversive films of French-Martinican writer-director Julius-Amédée Laou carry on the legacy of his compatriot Frantz Fanon, giving blistering expression to the experience of postcolonial systemic racism in France. Though he is most famous as a playwright, Laou’s forays into cinema—including the urgent, landmark short Open Mic Solitaire and his trenchantly funny first feature The Old Sorceress and the Vale —display boldly cinematic formal flourishes deployed in the name of radical defiance.