The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

On the Italian island of Lampedusa, a twelve-year-old boy learns to use a slingshot, a doctor treats seasick islanders, and a radio operator hears distress calls from boats in the Mediterranean. The film cuts between the island's daily life and the coast guard rescuing people from overloaded boats. It won the Golden Bear at Berlin.

Why it’s here: The film holds two worlds side by side and refuses to explain either: the island that goes on with its life, and the people who arrive. What's punk is the refusal of voiceover and the absence of a rescue narrative. What's pedagogical is that students can discuss what the camera chooses to look at. Companion to Exit West and Solito. Note: slow and quiet, with scenes of bodies from a rescue.

On New Year's Eve 2008, Oscar Grant spends the last day of his life with his daughter, his girlfriend and his mother, trying to be better than he has been. He's shot by a transit police officer on a BART platform in Oakland a few hours after midnight. Coogler made it as his first feature, and it begins with the real cell phone video.

Why it’s here: The film gives a man who became a headline a whole day, and makes the viewer sit with how ordinary it was. What's punk is that it starts with the real video and refuses to turn him into a symbol. What's pedagogical is how it rebuilds a person from a statistic. Pairs with The Hate U Give, Just Mercy and the Dear White People pick. It is a dramatization and shows the shooting.