The Book of Night Women

In 2021, twenty-six royal treasures looted by French troops from the Kingdom of Dahomey in 1892 are returned to Benin. Diop follows one artifact, a statue numbered 26, as it is packed up in Paris and carried home, and ends with Beninese students arguing over what the return means and who it is for. Part documentary, part essay, with the statue itself given a voice.

Why it’s here: It's a film about what it takes to return what was taken. What's punk is a statue that speaks and a room of students who tell the government it's not enough, twenty-six pieces out of thousands. What's pedagogical is the debate at the end: who owns history, and who decides? Pairs with Open Veins of Latin America, King Leopold's Ghost and Discourse on Colonialism. Note: short (68 minutes), slow and poetic; French, Fon and English with subtitles.

In 1929 in the Australian outback, an Aboriginal stockman named Sam Kelly kills a white man in self-defense and runs with his wife. A posse follows, and the film unspools the chase across a landscape that doesn't care. Thornton, an Aboriginal director, shoots the frontier like a western that remembers who it left out.

Why it’s here: The film takes the western and turns it around. What's punk is Thornton's refusal to let the story be about white guilt: the camera stays with Sam. What's pedagogical is how it puts the law on trial. Pairs with The Secret River, Dark Emu and Carpentaria. Note: violence, including a sexual assault and racist abuse; slow and spare. The cast includes Sam Neill and Bryan Brown.