The Racial Contract

A four-part essay-series by the director of I Am Not Your Negro, following the sentence that Conrad's Kurtz wrote on his report in Heart of Darkness. Peck narrates a history of colonialism, genocide and white supremacy from Columbus to the American West to the Congo, mixing archive footage, animation and staged scenes. It is the story the textbooks soften.

Why it’s here: The series connects things the curriculum keeps apart: colonial violence, slavery, the Holocaust, and the ideas that justified each. What's punk is the refusal of the neutral tone, and the fact that it names the thread. What's pedagogical is that it can be paused, discussed and argued with. Pairs with Discourse on Colonialism, Orientalism and King Leopold's Ghost. Note: it is long, essayistic and dense, and some critics call its sweep too broad.

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.