Devika Girish

Much like its heroine, Twice Colonized is a storm of emotion and conviction.

These are familiar, even hackneyed themes, which make the film’s relentless theatrics feel gratuitous and somewhat exhausting. Style overpowers substance, though Poe’s fantastic eye for composition and Clemons’s vivacious screen presence are undeniable.

As the film leans into melodrama, it loses both its friction and frisson, and a steaming-hot premise turns into something cold to the touch.

King is magnetic onscreen, nailing Chisholm’s accent and her steely persona. But there is little for her to do other than trade quips with the other characters, in a drama that is too content with telling rather than showing.

A theme running through the interviews is that for the U.S. government, sending a Black astronaut to space was more a matter of propaganda than racial justice.

The setting is rife with metaphoric potential, and it is here that Chen falters as a director.

Sarvnik Kaur’s breathtaking documentary about Indigenous fishermen in Mumbai, India, dispels the myth that cinematic beauty has to do with the power of the camera or the glossiness of the image. Shot by Ashok Meena, the film finds beauty, simply, in perspective.

Nicole Newnham’s film recoups Hite’s story from the margins of feminist history with both style and substance, taking its cue from its subject.

Kiran and her family are heroes, but this isn’t a simple tale of heroism. The film lays bare the uneasy and inadequate avenues available to survivors seeking justice.

Guzmán’s documentary is a people’s microhistory of a nation in transition.