France's Children (75 minutes): Screening and Q&A

Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 6 PMBusboys and Poets, Brookland: 625 Monroe St NE, Washington, DC 20017 Join us for a screening of France's Children, presented in partnership with Drop Site and followed by a Q&A with director Aida Alami, moderated by Ryan Grim. March 2017: five years after her brother Amine was killed by a police officer, activist Amal Bentounsi finally comes face to face with the man who shot him. As the trial unfolds, Amal and fellow organizers transform a courtroom proceeding into a national challenge to police violence, racism, and exclusion in contemporary France. But the courtroom is only part of the story. Outside, a much larger battle is unfolding over who gets to define the country's values, whose suffering is acknowledged, and whose version of events becomes history. Following Amal, Nadia, Yasser, Nassim, and other human rights defenders over five pivotal days, the film captures a generation of French citizens, many of them children of immigrants from North and West Africa, who refuse to remain on the margins of the national narrative. Drawing inspiration from Black American liberation movements while confronting France's own unresolved colonial legacy, they challenge a country that promises equality yet often struggles to…