Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Jess is a British Punjabi eighteen-year-old in West London who plays soccer better than anyone in her park, and her parents want her to learn to cook a full Indian dinner. She joins a women's team behind their backs, falls for her coach, and has to find a way to be both daughters at once. It's a comedy with a wedding, an ugly sports bra and a lot of heart.

Why it’s here: The film makes a joke out of the fight between family expectations and a girl's ambition, and the girl wins on her own terms. What's punk is that Jess isn't asked to choose between her people and her game. What's pedagogical is how it handles racism, sexism and homophobia in a form a family can watch together. Pairs with Persepolis and Funny Boy.

Kirsten Johnson has shot documentaries across Bosnia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Liberia and the United States, and here she cuts together the footage that never made it into the finished films. There's a birth, a wedding, a dying mother, a sniper's view. It is a memoir in outtakes, and it asks what the person holding the camera owes to the person in front of it.

Why it’s here: The film turns the camera around on the person behind it, and asks what it means to film other people's worst days. What's punk is that it refuses the authority of a neutral observer. What's pedagogical is that it's a direct lesson in media literacy, since it shows how footage becomes a story. It matches the film-craft shelf and pairs with Faces Places and Hale County This Morning, This Evening.