NO FEAR, NO DIE (S’EN FOUT LA MORT)

France | 1990 | DCP | 90 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Claire Denis
Cast: Isaach De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Solveig Dommartin

Two Black immigrants—Dah from Benin and Jocelyn from the Caribbean—run an underground cockfighting ring at the mercy of a domineering white French gangster. Their uneasy authority over the roosters mirrors their own exploitation, caught in a system where power remains firmly in colonial hands. With its stark, unsentimental gaze, director Claire Denis turns the lens back on Europe, exposing how colonial violence mutates and persists within the so-called center of civilization. “The events that make up the action of No Fear, No Die are more than merely well imagined and plausible; they seem to have been excerpted from a fully realized world” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker). A new 4K DCP restoration will be screened.