focus on films from Belgium

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100% Arabica Set in a predominantly North African housing project just outside of Paris, this prescient 1997 dramedy from director Mahmoud Zemmouri follows a group of friends who escape the poverty and prejudice of their daily lives by forming a band called Rap Oriental. Their rai music (an infectious fusion of rap and traditional North African tunes)…    more      Calvaire: The Ordeal After a late-night gig, a lost lounge singer whose car has broken down stumbles into a terrible and secluded hotel where a series of atrocious--and increasingly violent--events take place. … …    more      Campfire CAMPFIRE is comprised of four short films from acclaimed gay Dutch filmmaker Bavo Defurne. Defurne's work examines gay love and loss while referencing other artists--from Eisenstein to Pierre et Gilles. This collection includes the titles "Campfire," "Saint," "Particularly Now, In Spring," "Sailor."…    more      Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death This startling, dramatic documentary from director Peter Bates--which caused considerable controversy in Belgium on its original release--focuses on the rule of that country's King Leopold II, who turned the Belgian colony of the Congo into a forced labor camp of shocking brutality between 1885 and 1908…    more      Daughter of Keltoum This intriguing film, written and directed by the impressive Mehdi Charef, follows Rallia (Cylia Malki), a 19-year-old Swiss woman who goes looking for her biological mother in a remote Berber region of Algeria…    more      Dial History This thought provoking exposition on the history of aircraft hijacking offers a fascinating glimpse at a terrifying phenomena. Shot pre-9/11, DIAL HISTORY travels back to the 1960s for its first examples of commercial flights being commandeered, mostly as a means to get a political message across. Few of these early demonstrations met…    more