The Xeno File — xeno

The Dinner Guest

The Dinner Guest

In 1977, Gabriela Ybarra's grandfather, a wealthy Spanish industrialist and former mayor of Bilbao, was kidnapped by members of the Basque separatist group ETA. Over a summer of dread, his children fielded ransom letters and fended off a frenzied press until police found his body. In 2016, Ybarra's mother was diagnosed with cancer, beginning a new cycle of death in the family and pushing her reopen the story of her grandfather's murder. In this slim book, Ybarra blends memory and documentary, reporting and fiction to tell the story of the violence that has haunted her family. Pushing autofiction into new territory, she spins their tragedy into an almost mystical meditation on violence and redemption.

BooksDominique LearApril 30, 2020Spain, Auto-Fiction

The Barefoot Woman

The Barefoot Woman

Writer Scholastique Mukasonga lost 27 members of her family to anti-Tutsi violence during the Rwandan genocide. One of those souls was her mother, Stefania, whose ingenuity, humor, love, and absolute devotion to her family shine through this slim memoir. In mournful, playful chapters centered on daily life in their village—bread, their house, weddings—Mukasonga weaves a funeral shroud for her mother. This lyrical memorial won the Seligmann Prize in France and was recently longlisted for the National Book Award in the United States.

BooksCian DinanApril 30, 2020Rwanda, Powerful

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

A classic of Pablo Almodovar's films, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios is a treat to revisit. Completely over the top, slightly disorienting, but entirely entertaining, this is a gem from the 80s that follows Pepa as she navigates the end of her relationship with a married man. Filled with unlikely coincidences and excellent shoulder pads, this is an excellent mid-week watch.

MoviesDominique LearApril 30, 2020Spain, Quirky, Powerful

Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir is one of Dominique's favorite movies because it is so multi-faceted, it is a film rich for analysis. Waltz With Bashir is an animated documentary; the animation resembles a graphic novel. The documentary follows the director, Ari Folman, as he journeys to discover what really happened in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Folman was a part of the Israeli army in the Lebanese Civil War. There are, of course, limitations with the way this film understands the Isreali-Palestinian-Lebanese conflicts, but it's a fascinating piece of culture nevertheless.

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Israel, Powerful, Thought-Provoking, Documentary

A-WA

A-WA

The all-female Yemenite-Israeli group A-WA blasted onto the world stage in 2016 with their single "Habib Galbi"—"Love of My Heart"—which layered the haunting vocal harmonies of a traditional Yemeni love song over synthesized riffs and hip-hop beats. This hypnotic banger and its accompanying surrealist video immediately went viral across the Arab world, and it became the first-ever song in Arabic to top the Israeli pop charts. Now, the three sisters behind A-WA have released their second full studio album, Bayti fi Rasi. Just like "Habib Galbi," it's a mix between traditional music and cutting-edge pop, big and playful and always danceable.

MusicDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Yemen, Israel

Formas de Volver a Casa

Formas de Volver a Casa

Chilean writer Zambra toys with the boundary between fiction and non-fiction in this nostalgic, porous narrative. His way with ~metafiction~ creates narrative folds throughout the novel, so that we are reading a book inside of a book and are constantly swept by the author's invitation to interrogate, perhaps wrestle with, personal memory, the writing process, and the idea of “literature.”

BooksDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Chile, Novel

Delhi Crime

Delhi Crime

Set in the immediate aftermath of an appalling, notorious sexual assault on a New Delhi bus, Delhi Crime follows the efforts of police officers working under enormous public pressure and with few resources other than their own ingenuity to find and arrest the suspects. At once a visceral police procedural, a tense character-driven drama, and a sweeping, nuanced portrait of India’s bustling capital, Delhi Crime is never burdened by the tropes of any of these genres: it tells its own story on its own terms, horrifying and captivating in equal measure.

TV ShowDominique LearMarch 14, 2020India, On Netflix, Thriller, Crime

Derry Girls

Derry Girls

Set in the Northern Irish city of Derry (or Londonderry, depending on your persuasion), this boisterous comedy follows the misadventures of a raucous, profane, self-involved set of four schoolgirls and one schoolboy. As the Troubles rage inconveniently around them, Erin, Orla, Clare, Michelle, and James try their worst to get out of exams, weather detention, and earn money for the school trip to Paris. Like the best Irish and British comedies, each episode sees the characters make more and more inane and selfish choices until they reach an uproarious climax—at one point, they try to fake an IRA kidnapping to avoid being banned from the chip shop. Come for the sendups of religious tensions, stay for Siobhan McSweeney as the deliciously sardonic nun who runs the school.

TV ShowCian DinanMarch 14, 2020Ireland, Historical, Humor

Thelma

Thelma

EPILEPSY AND SEIZURE WARNING: Thelma, directed by Joachim Trier, is one part coming of age story, one part murder mystery, and one part supernatural thriller, blended together in a hypnotic, visually stunning movie. Raised by conservative and emotionally abusive Christian parents, the titular Thelma is a quiet, lonely university student. But when she realizes she's attracted to one of her female friends, Anja, she begins to experience supernatural episodes that may be God punishing her, or may be her own power manifesting for the first time. Thelma unfolds in its quiet moments, in its lingering shots of hallways, buildings, and forests, clearly manned by an even-handed and in-control Trier. Yet even in all the silence, Thelma's magic wraps around the viewer as much as it does the bewildered characters.

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Norway, Thriller, Mystery

Velvet

Velvet

Why would anyone ever need a cheesy soap? That's what I used to say until I encountered the recent trend in (Spain) Spanish historical fiction soaps, from which Velvet stands out as the origin series. In Velvet, we're transported to a department store in Madrid in the 1940s, where the main character, Ana, works as a seamstress. She and the store's owner are in love, and have been since they were children, but pesky societal and class boundaries won't let them be together. This is exactly what one needs to watch when the world is a little too much, and you need to believe love will prevail above all else.

TV ShowDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Spain, Soapy, Romantic, On Netflix

Rams

Rams

"An Icelandic saga of the highest order" is how an IMDB review of this movie begins. Set in rural Iceland, this movie, directed by Grímur Hákonarson, follows two brothers who both own ancestral, prize-winning sheep farms. One day, the village discovers that the local sheep have been infected with scrapie, a fatal, degenerative, and highly contagious nerve condition, and they're faced with the prospect of sacrificing their herds to prevent a wider outbreak. It's a touching, slightly unnerving saga.

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Iceland, Quirky, Thought-Provoking

On Body and Soul

On Body and Soul

What would you do if you found out that you share dreams with someone you just met? This question underlines the plot of Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi’s On Body and Soul—a quirky and ethereal romance, though not one for the faint of heart. (Let’s just say it’s set in a slaughterhouse.)

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Hungary, Heartwarming, Quirky, On Netflix

Okja

Okja

This movie is quite a treat - though it took Dominique a few tries before she finally sat down to watch it, Okja, directed by Bong Joon-Ho, is a Netflix Original movie in which a young girl and her best friend and super pig, Okja, get caught in a battle between environmentalists and a multi-national corporation. Delightfully dystopic, this is a movie well timed for our current environmental crisis.

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Korea, On Netflix, Quirky, Environment

Babylon Berlin

Babylon Berlin

This gorgeous German period piece revels in the joys and turmoil of Berlin's "Golden Twenties"—the brief, raucous years between the horrors of the Great War and the Great Depression. Police commissioner Gereon Rath, a veteran with a morphine problem, is sent from sleepy Kōln to Berlin to find his father's blackmailers. The investigation leads him through slums, nightclubs, train yards, Communist hideouts, and fine restaurants on the trail of an ever-expanding conspiracy.

TV ShowDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Germany, On Netflix, Quirky, Historical

And Breathe Normally

And Breathe Normally

A single Icelandic mother and her son embark on an adventure, albeit, not a particularly fun one. Struggling with poverty, the mother and son duo are forced to vacate their apartment, return their recently adopted cat to the shelter, and depend on food samples at the supermarket to complete meals. But along the way, they meet a Guinea-Bissauan refugee applying for asylum in the country, with whom a gentle and kind friendship emerges. It's a sweet, thoughtful movie for when you want to escape your own walls.

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Iceland, On Netflix, Heartwarming

The Hunt

The Hunt

What happens when someone is falsely accused of a crime? What happens when that crime is pedophilia? The Hunt is set in a small Danish town, where Lucas, a daycare teacher, has to face unwelcome and potentially life-threatening allegations, while at the same time learning to navigate the toxicity of a small town armed against him. A less contemporary film than the previous two, but a great watch nonetheless!

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Denmark, On Netflix, Thriller

Patrice

Patrice

Patrice Bart-Williams was born in Germany to a Sierra Leonean-Germany family. His most recent album, Life's Blood, demonstrates Patrice's cross-cultural upbringing—reggae rhythms carry his politically-laced lyrics in English. This is a lively and up-beat song with powerful lyrics.

MusicDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Germany, Sierra Leone

The Eternal Femenine

The Eternal Femenine

In The Eternal Feminine (Los adioses, dir. Natalia Beristáin), Mexican director Natalia Beristáin portrays the life of Rosario Castellanos, the renowned Mexican poet and diplomat. Interlacing Castellanos's youth and her days as a student in Mexico and Guatemala with the tensions in her marriage later in life, Beristáin presents a complex portrait of a profoundly feminist figure, whose writing and thinking was years beyond her time. This is a sweet and short historical fiction, perfect for a rainy day.

MoviesDominique LearMarch 14, 2020Mexico, Thought-Provoking

Rosalia

Rosalia

Rosalía is a phenomenon across Spanish-speaking countries, and she's quickly becoming a sensation in the rest of the world. Her music is a refreshing, modern twist on flamenco rhythms, and her voice is stunning, hypnotizing. Some call her the Rihanna of Flamenco... Pff. She may be better.

MusicDominique LearSeptember 1, 2019Spain

Ghoul

Ghoul

In the dystopian India of the miniseries Ghoul, Muslims and other groups live under the heel of a hyperviolent state. Young security officer Nidu is posted to an underground interrogation facility, shut in with a small band of torturers and ragged prisoners. Then a strange, ancient force arrives among them, stirring the jailers' dark terrors, hunting them through the concrete maze. Not for the faint of heart, Ghoul crafts a riveting series from the all-too-real horrors of state violence, terrorism, and atrocity.

TV ShowCian DinanSeptember 1, 2019India, On Netflix