Maybe it is because I’m from Chicago, but Kartemquin Films has always been a big deal for me. The Chicago-based documentary company has churned out dozens of fantastic docs in their 50 years, most with a specific eye toward social justice. Even if you don’t recognize the name, it’s likely you’ve seen films they’ve produced—most likely their work with Steve James, including Hoop Dreams and Life Itself. You now have a great opportunity to see many of their great films with their newly announced partnership with Fandor. The streaming service will be the exclusive home for 30 films from throughout Kartemquin’s history, with the first 16 available now. Highlights of the partnership include Kartemquin’s first film, Home for Life, labor struggle film The Last Pullman Car, James’s Grassroots Chicago, and seven-hour immigrant story The New Americans. When you want to take a break from splurging on this new amazing catalog, check out other films new to streaming down below.

Netflix

Starlet [Sean Baker, 2012]

With Sean Baker’s Tangerine garnering great reviews on the indie scene, it’s a great opportunity to check out his last feature. Starlet stars Dree Hemingway and Besedka Johnson as unlikely friends with about 60 years between them. After directionless Jane finds a considerable amount of cashed stored in the thermos she just bought from Sadie’s yard sale, she gets tied up in the old woman’s life. Starlet is a unique film with just a touch of blackly comedic tones over the usually quirky May-December friendship plot. For more on Starlet and Sean Baker, check out our original review of the film and our recent interview with Baker discussing Tangerine.

Other titles new to Netflix this week:
Can’t Hardly Wait [Harry Elfont & Deborah Kaplan, 1998]
Do I Sound Gay? [David Thorpe, 204]
Doomsdays [Eddie Mullins, 2013]
Harry and Tonto [Paul Mazursky, 1974]
Last Days in Vietnam [Rory Kennedy, 2014]
Master of None [Series, Season 1]
Seymour: An Introduction [Ethan Hawke, 2014]
Twinsters [Samantha Futerman & Ryan Miyamoto, 2015]

Fandor

Sembene! [Samba Gadjigo & Jason Silverman, 2015]

Our friends at Fandor have become one of the best places on the internet to check out a number of classic films, but they offer much more than their well-publicized Criterion Picks. As a prime example, now-streaming Sembene! (check out our review) hits Fandor the same week it debuts in limited release. The film is a profile doc of 84-year-old filmmaker Ousmane Sembene, the first director from Africa to find sustained international acclaim. His films Black Girl, Xala and Moolaadé are often recognized as the greatest films ever from the continent, exploring much more than the outsider view we so often see. Chronicling his incredible artistic journey, Sembene! is definitely of interest for fans of world cinema.

Other titles new to Fandor this week:
The Grandmother [David Lynch, 1970]
Happy Valley [Amir Bar-Lev, 2014]
The Pearl Button [Patricio Guzmán, 2015]
Watchers of the Sky [Edet Belzberg, 2014]
Zorns Lemma [Hollis Frampton, 1970]

MUBI

If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle [Florin Serban, 2010]

An underseen release from the Romanian New Wave, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle may have an unwieldy title, but remains a tense drama. The film involves Silviu, a teenage prisoner on the brink of being released. When he finds out that his estranged mother is leaving Romania and taking his beloved young brother, his emotional response threatens his status. This leads to the film’s major dramatic setpiece, an extended hostage situation where Silviu has taken a young social worker with who he has developed a connection. Like most recent Romanian films, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle is intensely bleak and with high emotional stakes. Director Florin Serban’s following project, Box, sounds like an intriguing puzzle-like thriller, and will most likely come to the West next year. So, in order to catch up, you can check out If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle on MUBI until December 2.

Other titles new to MUBI this week:
Aliyah [Elie Wajeman, 2012]
Free Men [Ismaël Ferroukhi, 2011]
Her Name Is Sabine [Sandrine Bonnaire, 2007]
Tu Dors Nicole [Stéphane Lafleur, 2014]
Watchtower [Pelin Esmer, 2012]

Video On-Demand

Inside Out [Pete Docter, 2015]

One of the most loved films of the year and Pixar Studio’s most successful film not named Toy Story 3, Inside Out arrives on Video On-Demand along with its DVD and Blu-ray release. Joy, Sadness, Disgust and the gang’s journey is among the most entertaining, sharp and emotional experiences in the cinema. Perhaps more importantly, after a few relatively mediocre releases, Pixar showed once again that it is the top dog in animation. I am convinced Inside Out will be on a wide variety of end-of-year lists and is an honest contender for major awards outside of animation. Check out our review for more thoughts on the latest masterpiece from the animation juggernaut.

Other titles new to VOD this week:
The Hallow [Corin Hardy, 2015]
Lost in the Sun [Trey Nelson, 2015]
Vacation [John Francis Daley & Jonathan M. Goldstein, 2015]

Widely regarded as “the father of African cinema” (though he himself declined the moniker with contempt) Ousmane Sembene made waves where other filmmakers made ripples, altering the landscape of African culture and its worldwide perception via nine politically inflammatory, groundbreaking films he directed over his 38-year career. Single-minded and passionate (and decidedly stubborn and arrogant), Sembene changed the world by setting fire to injustices and stereotypes that dehumanized he and his people, though his raging crusade left his loved ones scorched as well.

Sembene’s accomplishments, influence, philosophies and moral shortcomings are examined thoroughly and artfully in Sembene!, Jason Silverman and Samba Gadjigo‘s new documentary chronicling the Senegalese icon’s unremitting fight against ignorance throughout his controversy-laden career (Sembene died in 2007 at the age of 84). Gadjigo, an educator and longtime partner and disciple of Sembene’s, narrates much of the film, conjuring memories of his late friend starting with a late-life correspondence in which Sembene gifted Gadjigo with a key to his seaside home. Camera in tow, the co-director enters the house in the present day, revealing a rotting treasury of the late director’s possessions—books, photo albums and film canisters wasting away in piles that leave Gadjigo staggered at how the man’s legacy has gone abandoned.

The son of a fisherman, Sembene served in WWII and earned a living as a dock worker in his early years. When a back injury forced him to lie belly down on a bed for months, he immersed himself in literature and became a self-made novelist. Outraged that black people had no voice in cinema, he studied film in Moscow and set out to make his own films, films concerned solely with the experiences of the sub-Saharan African people.

Without precedent and without an African film industry in place to finance his work, Sembene re-defined his destiny by using resourcefulness to build his projects from the ground up. His films gave the world its first glimpse African life through African eyes, challenging his international audiences to dispel perpetuated stereotypes about black people (his stirring drama Black Girl, following an African maid’s life on the French Riviera, was a New Wave-inspired eye-opener), though he applied the same level of scrutiny to his own government, urging his countrymen to abandon sick, antiquated traditions in the name of progress and revised notions of justice. Moolaade, his final film, is a devastating indictment on African female genital mutilation that raised awareness of the horrific practice internationally. His films were infamously banned both internationally and domestically on several occasions, though the bans arguably backfired and spread his message further and faster than his detractors could have ever predicted.

Silverman and Gadjigo provide an academic retrospective on Sembene’s work via select film clips and archival behind-the-scenes footage as well as painting a more personal, often unflattering picture of the man. His son Alain is interviewed, outlining just how big of an absentee his father really was, and his streak of unfaithfulness to his wife is briefly brought to bear. Sembene’s willingness to finish his films at any cost breached ethical boundaries regularly, from the time he intercepted funds meant for upcoming filmmakers to the frightening incident in which he subjected a little girl to emotional torture to make a scene feel more authentic. The best interviewee is Bouboucar Boris Diop, one of the younger filmmakers swindled at the hands of Sembene. He can’t deny his deep admiration for the late trailblazer, but there’s more than a smattering of residual resentment and bitterness to his testimony.

Sembene! is too dry and formal to be lovable, but it makes its point emphatically, paying tribute to a filmmaker whose pugnaciousness was both a gift and a curse. The complex, dark corners of Sembene’s life aren’t explored enough, which is ironic for a movie about an artist seeking nothing less than the whole truth. One can only wonder if Sembene would approve of Silverman and Gadjigo’s reluctance on this front.