Unfamiliar Fishes

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.

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.