Black Code/Code Noir

The image of a page the Black Codes, the set of laws which starting from 1876, led to racial segregation in South America, is the starting point from which Henderson builds this meditation on contemporary racism. In his work the director has always explored the relationships in force between society and new forms of colonialism. The film shows, in a quick montage, images of the Haitian Revolution, the first American state to gain the independence of the gens de couleur, the modern American police’s security protocols, and the killing, for no apparent reason, of two African Americans, Michael Brown and Powell Kajieme, murdered in the street, respectively in Ferguson and St. Louis (Missouri) by police officers in 2014. The film focuses on the bitter reaction that poured onto the Internet from the black community, and the feeling of unity of African American population shown by web pages. Editing videos recorded on smartphones and archive materials, and referring to the large rallies on social media, the director provides access to historical facts that have marked the lives of African-Americans, on whom the words of Malcolm X and the re-evocation of animist thought of Haitian independence echo.