Globalization, defined by Merriam-Webster as “the integration of national
economies through trade, investment, capital, flow, labor migration, and
technology,” is a seismic force reshaping countries and their populations.
Many regard this as a contemporary phenomenon stemming from advances in
transportation and communications, but if you want to delve into the
beginnings of globalization, look to the trans-Atlantic slave trade that
from the early 1500s to the late 1800s linked Europe with Africa and the
New World. With its entrenched racism, the effects of this forced mass
removal and colonial resettlement of an estimated 12.5 million Africans
reverberate today and are explored in several entries in the richly
textured 16th-anniversary edition of the African Diaspora International
Film Festival, hosted by Facets Cinematheque from June 8 through14.
In Foreign Body (2016, 92 min.), Tunisian
writer-director Raja Amari (Satin Rouge) filters through a feminist lens the experiences in France of Arabs from
the Mahgreb. Sarra Hannachi plays a young woman who escapes political
unrest in the former French protectorate of Tunisia, hoping to make a
better, safer life overseas. After a horrific Mediterranean crossing, her
port in the storm is Lyon, where her violent brother’s friend Imed (Salim
Kechiouche) works as a bartender. Soon she moves from his couch to a swank
apartment owned by a French Arab widow (Hiam Abbass) to help sort the dead
husband’s belongings. The heroine is quick to assimilate, better than Imed,
who struggles to reconcile his patriarchal African upbringing with his
attraction to both Western culture and the two women.
Fri 6/8-Thu 6/14: times vary, see website, Facets Cinémathèque, 1517 W. Fullerton, 773-281-4114, facets.org, $10, $8 students and seniors, $80 festival pass.
