This iteration of The Machine that Kills Bad People features two films with children as their protagonists and collaborators. 
 
Set over a single day, and shot on the heels of 50th anniversary of Algerian independence, Bloody Beans follows a group of children whose beachside antics turn into a surreal restaging of the War of Independence. Fed up with their humiliating diet of the titular beans, they storm a colonial barracks, abduct a French soldier and journey into the hallucinatory night. Working closely with 20-odd pre-teens from the Bab el Oued district of Algiers, Narimane Mari’s debut feature blends historical fiction and collective performance to powerful, exhilarating effect.
 
Christmas at Moose factory marked the directorial debut of legendary Abenaki director Alanis Obomsawin. Filmed at a residential school in northern Ontario, the film is composed entirely of drawings by young Cree children with stories told by the children themselves. Listening has been at the core of Obomsawin’s practice since the very beginning. “Documentary film,” she said in a 2017 interview, “is the one place that our people can speak for themselves. I feel that the documentaries that I’ve been working on have been very valuable for the people, for our people to look at ourselves… and through that be able to make changes that really count for the future of our children to come.”

With a specially commissioned essay by Vanessa Onwuemezi.

Programme: 

Christmas at Moose Factory, dir. Alanis Obomsawin, Canada 1971, 31 mins.
Bloody Beans, dir. by Narimane Mari, Algeria/France 2013, 77 mins., French, Arabic with English subtitles