The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?

In a Zambian village, an eight-year-old girl is accused of witchcraft after a small incident and sent to a government-run witch camp, where the women are tied to spools of white ribbon so they can't fly away. She is made a tourist attraction and a courtroom tool. A deadpan satire from a Zambian-Welsh director about how belief becomes an industry.

Why it’s here: It's what a society does to someone who is made a spectacle. What's punk is the dry comedy of bureaucracy and tourism turning a child into an exhibit. What's pedagogical is the question it leaves: who benefits from the story? Pairs with Things Fall Apart, The Famished Road and Satanic Verses (suggested 10-22). Note: dark comedy, with a child at the center and no easy rescue; Nyoni drew on real witch camps in Ghana. English, Bemba and Nyanja with subtitles.

Based on a real 1990s case in Tamil Nadu: a man from the Irular tribal community is arrested by police on a false theft charge and disappears in custody. His wife, Sengani, goes looking for him, and a lawyer takes the case. A courtroom drama about caste, police violence and what it takes to make an institution answer.

Why it’s here: The film puts caste on screen as a legal system and not a metaphor. What's punk is how it centers a woman nobody would listen to and refuses to let the court be the hero. What's pedagogical is the case file: it shows how a lawyer builds evidence against a state. Pairs with Annihilation of Caste, Ants Among Elephants and Caste. Note: Tamil with subtitles, about 2h45m, and it shows police torture. The release drew a defamation complaint over a calendar image in one scene, and the filmmakers changed it.