Under The Radar Films
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Smile Orange is a 1976 satirical film set in Jamaica. It follows the day-to-day life of Ringo (Carl Bradshaw) a smooth-talking waiter and con-man. The film explores the tourism industry in the Caribbean and seems to suggest there are similarities to slavery in that industry.
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Better Mus' Come (2010)


Jamaica is caught in the grip of the cold war. Violence rages across the island as national elections approach. The slums are set ablaze as heavily-armed rival gangs aligned to both the People's National Party, and the opposition Jamaica Labour Party, fight a bitter turf war on the streets of Kingston.
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Street vendor Marcia is scraping together a living in the ghetto section of Kingston, Jamaica. Her young daughter is being hounded by a rich sugar daddy who has been supporting the family; her brother's life is being threatened by a local thug. So, when the licentious patron threatens to abandon the family, and her brother breaks down under pressure, Marcia hits bottom. She needs to escape to a haven where she can get lost in fantasy; Marcia, don in sex-me-up clothing and outrageous glamour, finds refuge in the beats of the very dance hall outside of which she normally vends.
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Marley (2012)

Bob Marley's universal appeal, impact on music history and role as a social and political prophet is both unique and unparalleled. The definitive life story of the musician, revolutionary, and legend, from his early days to his rise to international super-stardom. Made with the support of the Marley family, there is rare footage, incredible performances and revelatory interviews with the people that knew him best.
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Rockers (1978)


Horsemouth sets himself up in business selling records but when gangsters steal his bike things start to turn nasty. As tensions build, Horsemouth and friends plot to end the gangsters reign of terror and restore justice to the people of Kingston
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Sugar Cane Alley (1983)


Set in 1931, Sugar Cane Alley paints a rich impasto of native life under French colonial rules, filtered through the coming-of-age of a bright, sweetly opportunistic boy learning to reconcile the value of his shanty-town roots with the education opportunities that beckon him to the big city.
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Ventos de Agosto (2014)


Shirley has left the big city to live in a small seaside town and look after her elderly grandmother. She drives a tractor on a local coconut plantation, loves rock music and wants to be a tattoo artist. She feels trapped in the tiny coastal village. She is involved with Jeison, who also works on the coconut farm and who free dives for lobster and octopus in his spare time. During the month of August, when tropical storms pound the coastline, a researcher registering the sound of the trade winds emanating from the Intertropical Convergence Zone arrives in their village. The high tides and the growing winds mark the following days of the village and a surprise discovery takes Shirley and Jeison on a journey that confronts them with the duel between life and death, loss and memory, the wind and the sea.
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Waste Land (2010)


A social documentary based around the lives of garbage pickers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a man by the name of Vik Muniz creates art out of recycled material.
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A retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, set during the time of the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.
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Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998)


In a little village somewhere in Africa, a boy named Kirikou is born. But he's not a normal boy, because he knows what he wants very well. Also he already can speak and walk. His mother tells him how an evil sorceress has dried up their spring and devoured all males of the village except of one. Hence little Kirikou decides, he will accompany the last warrior to the sorceress. Due to his intrepidity he may be the last hope of the village.
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A Senegalese woman is eager to find a better life abroad. She takes a job as a governess for a French family, but finds her duties reduced to those of a maid after the family moves from Dakar to the south of France.
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Wuthering Heights (2011)


A poor boy of unknown origins is rescued from poverty and taken in by the Earnshaw family where he develops an intense relationship with his young foster sister, Cathy.
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Idealistic engineer-trainee and his experiences in teaching a group of rambunctious white high school students from the slums of London's East End.
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A coming-of-age story about two inner city boys who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.
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Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastions of these mores in America. Set in 1902.
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In this Netflix special, Chris Tucker returns to the stage he loves and showcases his mind-blowing comedic chops as he shares his experiences from childhood to the big time.
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Girls Trip (2017)

When four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, sisterhoods are rekindled, wild sides are rediscovered, and there's enough dancing, drinking, brawling, and romancing to make the Big Easy blush.
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Next Day Air (2009)


Two inept criminals are mistakenly delivered a package of cocaine and think they've hit the jackpot, triggering a series of events that changes ten people's lives forever.
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Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall...
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Baby Boy (2001)


This is the story of Jody, an unemployed young black man, who's been living with his mother for several years, even though he's got a child of his own. Romantically, he's having relationships with two women: Yvette, the mother of his son, and a new interest.
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Pariah (2011)

A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.
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Fences (2016)


Troy Maxson makes his living as a sanitation worker in 1950s Pittsburgh. Maxson once dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player, but was deemed too old when the major leagues began admitting black athletes. Bitter over his missed opportunity, Troy creates further tension in his family when he squashes his son's chance to meet a college football recruiter.
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She's Gotta Have It (1986)


Nola Darling is an independent-minded young woman who knows what she likes and what she wants out of life. She's attractive, likes sex and has no trouble attracting men but she knows what kind of man she wants. She also attracts women like Opal Gilstrap, who hope she'll 'come around'. The three men in her life - Jamie Overstreet, Mars Blackmon and Greer Childs - all provide their point of view on Nola and on their relationship with her.
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Fresh (1994)


Fresh (Sean Nelson) is a 12-year-old drug dealer who finds himself trapped in a web of poverty, corruption and racial tension in Brooklyn, New York
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Killer of Sheep (1978) (1978)


Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant. Dissatisfaction and ennui keep him unresponsive to the needs of his adoring wife, and he must struggle against influences which would dishonor and endanger him and his family.
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Gridlock'd (1997)

After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape.
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Days of Glory (2006)




The film deals with the contribution of North African soldiers to the Free French Forces during the Second World War and with the discrimination against them.
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A young Palestinian freedom fighter agrees to work as an informant after he's tricked into an admission of guilt by association in the wake of an Israeli soldier's killing.
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After spending a year in solitary confinement, Matsu escapes from prison with six more convicts, followed by the guards led by the vengeful warden who wants her dead at all costs.
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Lady Snowblood (Shurayuki-hime) is caught by the police and sentenced to death for her crimes (in Lady Snowblood I). As she is sent to the gallows she is rescued by the secret police who offer her a deal to assassinate some revolutionaries.
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Kids in Love (2016)


Set against the backdrop of an underground, bohemian London, Kids In Love offers a new take on the traditional coming of age story. Drifting through his gap year with internships and travel.
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Michel is a young technician in the fledgling TV industry and is due for military service in two months at the time of the Algerian War. Juliette and Liliane are inseparable best friends, and aspiring actresses, who hang around outside the TV studio. Michel invites them in to watch, flirts with them both, and dates them separately and together.
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First Name: Carmen (1983)


A woman involved with a terrorist group becomes dangerously close to the police officer guarding the bank they plan to rob.
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Three people - a rich couple and a crew member - are shipwrecked on a tropical island, and their subsequent fight for survival becomes even tougher when they begin to turn on each other.
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Lust for a Vampire (1971)



In 1830, forty years to the day since the last manifestation of their dreaded vampirism, the Karnstein heirs use the blood of an innocent to bring forth the evil that is the beautiful Mircalla - or as she was in 1710, Carmilla.
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Babylon (1980)



Babylon follows the story of David, a working class musician and black man in South East London. By day he works as a mechanic, at night David is a Mic controller at a local dance hall. The film centers around the racial divide of London in the 80's, the lack of opportunities available to black people and poverty.
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Samba (2014)



Samba migrated to France 10 years ago from Senegal, and has since been plugging away at various lowly jobs. Alice is a senior executive who has recently undergone a burnout. Both struggle to get out of their dead-end lives Samba's willing to do whatever it takes to get working papers, while Alice tries to get her life back on track until fate draws them together
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Leila and Reza meet in a kind of celebration and fall for each other. Having discovered their love, they get married soon only to find out the infertility of Leila. That's when Reza's authoritative mother starts wheedling Leila to persuade Reza into second marriage for the sake of having a grandchild.
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Published 6 years, 1 month ago
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