REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS TO COME   2001
Directed by Yannick Bellon and Chris Marker
42 minutes
In English

In theory this is a cinematic portrait of female photographer Denise Bellon, but actually directors Yannick Bellon and Chris Marker use her images to go beyond an individual story, and explore the world around us. In this case, they use Denise Bellon's photographs to document history between 1935 and 1955. For many people French director Chris Marker was the leading exponent of what has been called the essay-film, and that is the breezy form this flick takes. It features his usual female narrator Alexandra Stewart (who has an amazingly grave, yet seductive quality to her voice).

The format of the essay-film prevents the narrative from becoming too logical, dry and pedantic, and allows it to flip around like crazy in space and time, free to follow off-the-cuff associations, and punctuate the journey with insights and poetry. Along the way we touch upon the Spanish-civil War, the explosion of the surrealist art movement, the development of movie culture in France, the rise of right-wing fascism in Europe, World War II, the history of Paris and the radical changes of the 1950s, etc., using Denise Bellon's photography as a source of inspiration and documentation. In this way, they are able to touch upon the intimate and the historical at the same time, and make connections between the two.

This film was created together with photographer Denise Bellon's daughter Yannick—a profound filmmaker in her own right who made crucial films, but has never been given credit for her work and vision. I hate to say this, but mostly director Agnes Varda grabbed all the attention, leaving many other female directors behind and unrecognized... including Yannick. Sure, that's the way the media works—it always sensationalizes a single individual... but that doesn't mean someone like Varda had to go along with it. Yannick died four years ago, without even a whisper of her passing.

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THE GIRL WHO STOLE THE SUN  1999
Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty
43 minutes
In Wolof and French, with English subtitles

Some people consider this to be the best African movie ever made. Clocking in at 43 minutes it could be considered a short movie, but given its range and depth, it's totally a feature film. It follows the life of a young girl living on the streets of Dakar, who takes a job selling newspapers in a boy-dominated world. As one viewer put it, this girl can "kick ass". With a great music score, lush cinematography and a bold spirit, this was Senegalese director Mambéty's swan's song.

This film is about many things, but above everything else it is about the younger generation who give color to life and fight for their future (like the people of Takland). As the director put it, it is "a hymn to the courage of street children.”