Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias (*1985) explores his homeland in formally ambitious fashion in COCOTE (2017). Alberto works for a rich family in the capital, but the violent death of his father leads him back to his home village. He has grown apart from his Catholic family – as a converted evangelical he rejects their mourning rituals, which are interwoven with creole practices. Conflicts surrounding religion, revenge, corruption, and violence mark the situation, which is aesthetically translated into a confrontation between black-and-white and glowing, feverish colors, shifting image formats, and an insistent soundtrack. METEORLAR (2017) by Gürcan Keltek is showing as the director’s choice, which combines current videos of attacks on Kurdish villages with archaic landscapes. (bik) (3.7.)
