A Congolese protest song scores a history of activism, man-made caverns open deep beneath the surface of Singapore, outsiders witness a transformative Xucuru-Kariri tribe ritual, and the manic construction of Brasília sinks a neighboring town in these four nonfiction shorts.

One.Two.Three
Vincent Meessen, Belgium, 2015, 36m
French and Kikongo with English subtitles
A highlight from last year’s Venice Biennale, Vincent Meessen’s gorgeous and haunting split-screen film weaves together intersecting histories of art, music, and political activism through the eponymous protest song, written by a Congolese member of the Situationist International, Joseph M’Belolo Ya M’Piku, in May 1968. The three channels of One.Two.Three play off each other like the beautiful melody it gradually revives, culminating in a highly listenable performance inside a fiery rumba club. North American Premiere

Sea State Six
Charles Lim, Singapore, 2016, 11m
Charles Lim dives deep below sea level into a labor environment out of sight and earshot—where thunderous subterranean explosions hardly turn a stone above ground. Debuting at the Singapore Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, Lim’s work explores the physical expansion of the state, and changing state of the sea via the enormous, recently launched Jurong Rock Caverns in Singapore, a massive underground infrastructure for oil and fuel storage. U.S. Premiere

Toré
João Vieira Torres & Tanawi Xucuru Kariri, Brazil, 2015, 16m
Portuguese with English subtitles
An ethnographic film that doesn’t place the lives of “the other” into a vacuum. Firmly committed to capturing a sense of place, this verité film documents a Xucuru-Kariri tribe ritual that’s permitted to be witnessed by outsiders. João Vieira Torres and Tanawi Xucuru Kariri juxtapose the surrounding jungle and the transformative nature of the ceremony with a young native boy watching Disney’s Fantasia. U.S. Premiere

All Still Orbit
Dane Komljen & James Lattimer, Croatia/Serbia/Germany/Brazil, 2015, 22m
Italian and Portuguese with English subtitles
A philosophical-historical investigation of Brasília, the planned city capital of Brazil that was built over 41 months in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and the small, impoverished town just outside its limits that (literally) sank after its founding. Tracing its origins from Saint Don Bosco’s (possibly apocryphal) dream in 1883, the filmmakers use a lyrical voiceover and hyper-tinted digital images of the city and its environs to question the idealism of the city’s international style. North American Premiere