From the Balagan website:

For most of human history, the “right of conquest” drove international policy. The valiant Conquerer, it had been rationalized, was noble and righteous, divinely ordained to exploit, subjugate, and plunder; entitled to all the spoils of the wars he waged. Central to imperialist expansionism during the so-called “Age of Discovery,” this notion persisted as a dominant political belief until there was practically no land left on the terrestrial earth to colonize.

Then, following the Second World War, the international community changed its stance, determining wars of aggression unjust and illegal. Yet the underlying philosophy remains strong still today, even if the tactics have changed, that one may take by force what they believe they deserve – for might makes right. Indeed, this belief extends far beyond territorial claims and translates to all levels of human interaction, from the interpersonal to the international, with everything in between.

The four films in this program consider this theme from a variety of perspectives, reflecting on the legacies of Portuguese and Spanish colonialism, decades-long persistent warfare in Columbia, the conquest of the space (with notable echoes of the “Age of Discovery” in the “Space Age”), and an ever-present culture of sexual exploitation that only now seems to be gaining more widespread acknowledgment. Far from agitprop declarations, each film is nuanced and contemplative, preferring instead to offer room to think rather than conquering you its message.

This program is funded in part by a grant from the Brookline Commission for the Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

PROGRAM:

The Figures Carved into the Knife by the Sap of the Banana Tree (2014) dir. Joana Pimenta
La impresión de una guerra (2015) dir. Camilo Restrepo
Under the Atmosphere (2016) dir. Mike Stoltz
Soft Fiction (1979) dir. Chick Strand